Tuesday, August 12

Location: Cocha Salvador, Manu Reserve, Peru

Today's weather: 27░C.

This morning everyone in our little group got up at 6am. The camp echoed to the sound of dusky titi monkeys whooping like donkeys from the treetops. Sleepily we packed our backpacks ready for them to be loaded into the canoes. Leaving the backpacks outside the tents, our group then trekked off into the forest to find birds. The birds were all remained well hidden at this early hour in the morning, but we did manage to find the dusky titi monkeys along with some saddleback tamarins, and brown capuchins. Paula even claimed to have seen some Emperor Tamarins – characterised by a thick white moustache. The Emperor Tamarins got their name because late last century, a taxidermist with a sense of humour decided to roll the tamarin's moustache in the same way as late of the Prussian Emperor Wilhelm. We returned to the camp an hour later, by which time breakfast was ready.

After breakfast, we hopped back into the canoe again to continue our journey further up the Manu river. We spotted the animals almost at once – there were lots of caimans basking in the sun along the river beaches or floating semi-submerged in the water, long lines turtles in perched on logs being taunted by colourful butterflies trying to lick the salt from their eyelids, and an enormous variety of bird life. The birds included herons, a roseate spoonbill (a light pink bird with a bill shaped like a spoon), skimmers (large birds with a black and white body, and a large red beak), bright blue and green kingfishers, hawks, vultures, and big Orinoco geese. Macaws flew overhead in groups of two or three, and a toucan sat in the top of a nearby tree watching as our canoe travelled past. As with the previous day, I made frequent requests to stop the canoe, disrupting the scene so that I could go to the loo.

Lunch was served in the canoe since no one wanted to stop on the beach to be attacked by swarms of sandflies. After lunch we spotted saw one of the most wonderful scenes of my adventure so far. A capybara was standing on the beach with a small bird resting on its back. In front of the capybara, a baby caiman was resting in the cool water – its head was poking upwards and its jaws were wide open. Orinoco geese and other birds waddled around in the background. Pancho switched off the engine of the canoe and let us drift in close to the beach. Everyone kept very still and very quiet, hoping not to disturb this unusual assortment of animals gathered in front of us. The only sound to be heard was the clicking of camera shutters as we all took photographs to record the scene. We got very close, until at last the caiman got nervous and drifted under the water. But the capybara didn't seem to mind the attention – it merely sat down on the beach and looked back at us. We remained there watching for several minutes until Pancho and Alliu paddled us back into the centre of the river and restarted the engine.

Later that afternoon, our canoe stopped at Cocha Otorongo (Jaguar Lake), a small oxbow lake which supposedly contains a family of giant river otters. The plan was to take a brief walk in the surrounding rainforest to look for animals, and then to climb the 12-metre high observation tower where we'd hopefully be able to observe the otters. The walk was refreshing after having spent most of out day cooped up in the canoe. At the start of our walk we found a giant saber tree with huge buttresses extending out around it like the fins at the bottom of a rocketship. There were some vines hanging down next to the tree, which Rick grabbed and held tightly – enabling him to walk vertically up the tree for a few metres. Everyone else in the group soon followed, with the group of us posing for a photograph part way up the tree. Animals that we saw in the trees overhead during the rest of our walk through the rainforest included brown capuchin monkeys and macaws.

The small lake at Cocha Otorongo is home to a family of Giant River Otters. A 12-metre high observation platform had been built to give visitors a view of the entire lake and (hopefully) and easy and non-invasive way to view the otters. We climbed to the top of the observation tower and waited – but the otters never appeared. However, we could see hummingbirds feeding in the flowers of a nearby tree, and we could look down onto the lake where several large fish were resting just below the surface of the water gasping oxygen. We also watched a large apiranga (or "snake" bird) as it swam close to the shore. The snake bird gets its name because its body remains under the water when it swims – while its long neck protrudes above the surface, rising and falling like a snake.

Returning back to the canoe, we set off on our journey once more upriver – arriving a half hour later at our campsite, Cocha Salvador. The boat ride had been a little eventful – we got stuck on sandbars in shallow parts of the river several times. Pancho, Alliu, and Tino jumped off the boat to push us through. Alliu remained perched on the front of the canoe afterwards, guiding us through the shallow water which he poked into the water, testing the depth and pushing us away from obstacles.

At the campsite we pitched our tents – or rather, Pancho and Alliu pitched our tents. I tried to help but mostly just got in the way. We had a swim in the river – which became a regular ritual whenever we were camping since it was our only opportunity to get clean. We were already in the habit of bringing along soap and shampoo – lathering, and then rinsing in the river. I spent much of my time in the river wondering if piranha were attracted to soap-suds and kiwifruit-flavoured shampoo.

Dinner followed soon after our swim. With it, came a very interesting discussion. Earlier Rick and I had been talking, and I'd suggested that a really fun adventure would be to buy one of the motorised canoes at Manu then take it down all the interconnecting rivers and eventually onto the Amazon. Once on the Amazon, it would be possible to sail the canoe (with regular stops for gasoline) all the way to the Atlantic coast. To my surprise, Rick actually seemed keen on the idea – so we checked with Tino to ask what he thought. Although Tino agreed that the venture was possible, he warned that there was much more planning necessary to it than we'd thought. There were many stories of inexperienced "gringo" adventurers dying or disappearing on the river because they hadn't researched or prepared for the risks involved. Tino told some stories to prove his point. He told of a group of five people who attempted a canoe adventure through the area, camping on beaches overnight. None of the group was experienced and they had done little research to find out about the local conditions. One night, not realising that the water levels were rising, they failed to properly secure their canoe – which drifted off during the night resulting in the loss of their transport and supplies. They were far away from help and knew nothing of survival in the jungle. Two of the group set off into the jungleto find food, but were never seen again – they either got lost or met some worse fate. The remaining three set off walking along the riverbank hoping to reach a small village. Without insect repellent they became a target for mosquitoes, sandflies, and every other biting insect in the area. The three began scratching at these bites, which quickly became open sores that got infected. To make things worse, biting insects also carried diseases. Several weeks later, two of the group were found sleeping in a Ranger's station along the river – one was very sick from infections and died soon afterwards. Of the five who had originally set out, only one survived the ordeal.

Tino also told of some mountain-bikers that he'd met. In Cuzco, they had asked him the best way of getting to Porto Maldonaldo by trekking through the jungle and travelling along the rivers. Tino thought it was a joke – he said that the trip was possible, but that its shouldn't be attempted lightly. He then told the mountain-bikers a set of instructions which "theoretically" should get them to Porto Maldonaldo. He talked of mountain-biking to a certain point, then getting the locals to build a balsa-wood raft for travelling on the river. Tino told them who to contact at each point along the journey and what to ask for. The mountain-bikers didn't take notes – they just videotaped Tino as he spoke, then played the video back in the camera's viewfinder whenever they needed to refer to what he'd said. Tino didn't really think that the mountain-bikers were serious – but then he met them a few weeks later in Porto Maldonado, to discover that they'd followed the route exactly as he'd said. They'd been very lucky to get through – but now Tino's biggest fear was that the mountain-bikers would return to their country telling everyone how "easy" and exciting their adventure had been and encouraging more people to follow. This could result in lots of people getting killed.

Tino then enthused about the wonders of the rainforest environment. The Indians knew the medicinal properties of many rainforest plants. Scientists were trying to research the properties of these plants – one vine commonly used by the Indians had recently shown great promise in anti-cancer trials. Many drugs, including the humble aspirin, have been developed from traditional Indian medicines – and there is continuing research. It is almost impossible to design a medicine from scratch to cure a specific ailment – instead, scientists spend much of their time looking at naturally occurring substances, analysing what they do, then learning how to synthesize that substance artificially. In essence, Indian medicine is a vast treasure-trove of new cures if only the culture, knowledge, and raw material can be retained long enough for us find out about them.

Our talking went on until late. Afterwards, we returned to our tents (freshly sprayed to kill any mosquitoes that managed to slip in), and went to sleep.