The Manu National Park in southeastern Peru
is 4.5 million acres of rain forest and cloud forest. It’s a place of towering trees, meandering
rivers, 15,000 species of plants, vast numbers of mammals, reptiles and
insects, and over 1000 species of birds – more species than are found in the US
and Canada combined. It is inaccessible by
road and because of its remoteness and protected status it remains one of the
few pristine places left on the planet.
In addition to its designation by Peru as a national park, it has been
designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
“Talking About Manu –
Exploration of a Virgin Rainforest” is a slim but excellent travel guide about Manu written by
Marianne van Vlaardingen. The thumbnail
biography of the author that appears on the back of the book explains that Marianne
went to Peru in 1988 after completing her Master’s degree at the University of
Utrecht in the Netherlands. Her mission
was to study the Tamarin monkeys in the Biological Station of Manu Park. She obviously found her life’s purpose and
meaning in the Peruvian rain forest, since she has never left. She has built a rain forest lodge in the Manu
Cultural Zone and founded an eco-tourism project called “Pantiacolla”. Pantiacolla’s
mission is to share the unique Manu rain forest with tourists in an
Earth-friendly way, and it is so dedicated to reducing the human footprint on
our planet that the company brochure even provides travelers with information
on how they can engage in a tree planting project to offset the carbon
emissions produced by the airplane that brings them to Peru.
We’ve booked
a five-day trip into the Manu Reserve through Pantiacolla and on this day we
leave Cusco and head toward the cloud forest.
We’re out of bed at 3:45 AM. The
word from Pantiacolla is that there is a bridge being repaired on the Manu road
and that said bridge is open for traffic only for an hour at noon each
day. Our early start is so we can be at
this bridge at the right time to get across.
I’m not getting used to these inhumanly early mornings. A cold now has full possession of my
body. I unsuccessfully attempt
breakfast, then we grab our packs and stumble down to the San Blas Plaza to
wait for our ride.
At 4:30
the Pantiacolla van pulls into the plaza and a man hops out and introduces
himself as Michel, our guide for this adventure. He seems amazingly cheerful and energetic for
this early hour. He introduces us to the
other occupants of the van: William the
driver, Hubert the cook, and three fellow tourists – Adam, Alistair, and
Martin, all in their late twenties and from Belfast. We make a brief stop to pick up supplies then we are
on our way. Shortly after leaving Cusco
we run into some serious road construction, so it is slow going. But before too long, the early hour, the
darkness, and the gentle rocking of the van lull all of us off to sleep.
Then we
hear Michel announcing that it is time to wake up. It is still dark. The van is coasting to a stop by the side of
the road. Michel pronounces that we are
near the village of Ninamarka and that we are going to explore some chulpas;
cylindrical above ground tombs. These
funerary structures were built in pre-Incan times by the Lupaca culture. It is just starting to get light enough for
us to tell that we are on a mountainside and that everything is encompassed in
a thick fog. There is not much to see
other than this cluster of now empty circular tombs, but the fact that they
were built hundreds of years ago to hold the dead of a culture that is itself
now dead creates a peculiar effect that is further enhanced by the dark, the
quiet, and the fog.
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| The Pantiacolla Van Parked on the Fog Shrouded Mountainside |
A little
girl appears out of the mist and offers to sell us woven bracelets from a
basket she carries. Both Madeline and
Kathy buy a bracelet and then the girl walks away into the mist. I assume that she’s an enterprising youngster
who lives in the nearby village who gets up really early to sell her bracelets
to passing tourists. Interestingly, when
I check Google Maps later, I can’t find any village named Ninamarka or Ninamarca
or Nina Marka. I find the tombs, but
there doesn’t appear to be a village nearby.
Perhaps Ninamarka is like Brigadoon and only coalesces out of the mist
one day every one hundred years. In the next couple of days both Kathy’s and
Madeline’s bracelets disappear, so there’s no proof that the interaction with
the girl ever happened except for my pictures of the eerie chulpas in the fog.
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| Chulpas |
After we
are back in the van and on the road again, the sun rises above the mountains, the
fog burns off and we are able to see the countryside that we’re traveling
through. We’re losing altitude. We had started at over 11,000 feet in Cusco
and are headed toward the village of Atalaya which is at 1500 feet. As we go down, the mountains become richer
with foliage. And we are definitely in
the mountains. We are often traveling on
a road that has been inscribed into the side of a mountain with a sheer wall
thousands of feet high on one side and a sheer drop of thousands of feet on the
other side. The road is dirt/gravel, full of ruts, and essentially single
lane. This is problematic since the
traffic is two way. Meeting a vehicle
means that one vehicle has to back up to a "wide spot" and park
with wheels right on the edge so the other vehicle can pass. In some places the road is more like a
half-lane since the road has crumbled into the abyss in a landslide. There are
also occasional rocks on the road that have fallen from above. I am awestruck by the scenery but a little
freaked out by the driving conditions.
My life is in the hands of God – and William, the driver.
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| Above: The Road Through the Cloud Forest Below: The Road Snakes Through the Mountains |
Eventually
we dip into the Paucartambo River Valley at about 9000 feet and enter the picturesque
(sorry, there’s no better word!) market town of Paucartambo, a town of
whitewashed buildings with blue trim and tile roofs, cobblestone streets and an
18th century arched stone bridge across the river. Everybody piles out of the van and we gather
around a table in a little restaurant for breakfast. Afterward we stroll through the town to a
bakery where the baker and his helpers are baking flatbread in a hug brick oven. Since the oven retains its heat for so long
after it gets hot, there is a whole queue of items to go into the oven when the
bread is done – ranging from baskets of potatoes to trays of guinea pigs. This
oven has been in the baker’s family for over 200 years and is still baking
delicious bread. We buy several bags of
bread and enjoy some of it warm and fresh.
Hubert, our cook, will continue to serve us that bread over the next
several days.
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| Massive Brick Oven |
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| Bread in Oven |
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| Potatoes and Guinea Pigs Waiting for the Oven |
This is
ostensibly a religious festival and the church is packed around the clock when
the festival is underway. But beyond
that it is a festival of revelry, parades, music, theatrics, street food,
drinking, and general crazy fun. There
are seventeen dance troupes that perform specific traditional roles during the
festival. The troupes are made up of
local people who spend the entire year making their costumes and perfecting
their routines. Each troupe represents a
specific group or tradition important in Peruvian culture. The C’apaq Ch’uncho,
for example, represent the indigenous rain forest tribes, the Cápaq Negro represent
African slaves, the Cápaq Chuncho are warriors who form the honor guard of the
Virgin who is carried around the town on July 16 and again on July 17 when she
is carried to the bridge where she performs a blessing. After parading
through town all day, each troupe finds its way to its own house for an evening
of feasting and drinking. And the tens
of thousands of visitors who pack the town do likewise.
The version of
Paucartambo we see is a pleasant market town going about its business. We can only visualize in our minds eye what
it would be like during the festival, although to help us visualize it, there
is a group of seventeen statues near the museum that represent the seventeen
troupes.
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| Seventeen Statues |
After
Puacartambo, we continue on the meandering mountain road and eventually reach
the bridge under construction that had caused our early departure. We are right on schedule and join a line of
vehicles crossing over the narrow single lane that is available for use. Shortly after crossing the bridge, we pull to
the side of the road and Hubert fixes our lunch. We sit on a roadside guard rail and eat while
appreciating the natural surroundings and keeping an eye on the grazing cows
who amble past.
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| Cow |
After lunch we
hike along the road for a while and Michel effortlessly tosses off the names of
all the birds and plants we encounter.
(In this short walk we see a Golden Headed Quetzal; a Andean Pootoo, a
Slate Throated Redstart; a Masked Tanager; a Russet backed Oripendula; an Olive
Oripendula; a Lemon Browed Flycatcher; a Tropical Kingbird; and a Green Jay.)
Back in the van
for more mountain driving, I quickly fall into a slumber. I wake to Michel’s
announcement that we have arrived at a viewing blind for Cock-of-the-Rocks. The plan is to spend some time in the blind
and then walk for an hour to the lodge where we’ll spend the evening.
The
Cock-of-the-Rock is the Peruvian national bird and to call it colorful would be
an understatement. We are overwhelmed by
the display we see from the blind. Cock-of-the-Rocks
are polygamous and the males all gather together in communal groups called
“leks” where they engage in display rituals for the females. A “confrontation display” involves two males
jumping and flapping their wings at each other while squawking and basically
trying to act macho. Eventually the
female shows up and the males notch it up to an even higher level of crazy. Finally the female decides which male has the
hippest moves and they fly off wing-in-wing for some Netflix and chill, while
the other male sadly goes home pops a beer and plays video games.
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| Cock-of-the-Rock Being Outrageously Colorful |
After being
wowed by the birds for quite some time, and getting some fantastic photographs
we leave the blind and start our hour walk to the lodge. It is only then that we take note of the
troublingly dark clouds over our heads.
Hmmmm…..it looks a lot like rain.
Hmmmmm…..this is the cloud forest where it rains a LOT. I have a rain “resistant” jacket. My rain poncho is in the van and the van is
already at the lodge. I also have my
camera and the waterproof camera bag is also in the van. Hmmmmmm.
It starts
pouring rain. My rain resistant jacket
is soon soaked through. I’m holding my
camera under my jacket and water is streaming off of it. Then it starts raining harder. The only good
thing I can say about walking in a downpour is once you are completely wet you
can’t get any wetter. Eventually, we
forlornly squish into the Posada San Pedro Lodge. Kathy and Madeline are carrying packs and
they’ve had the foresight to pack all the contents in the packs in plastic
bags, so the contents are dry but the packs themselves are soaked. My pack and the suitcase containing the bulk
of our clothes is, fortunately, in the van.
The clothes we’re wearing are, of course, completely soaked. I am the only person with dry shoes because
my shoes are waterproof (note the important distinction between “waterproof”
and “water resistant”!). Our Irish
friends are apparently not well prepared.
They have no rain gear and no other shoes to wear but their soggy
ones. (They didn’t bring flashlights,
either!)
We strip out of
our wet clothes, wring them out and hang them up. Note that I didn’t say “hang them up to dry.”
Since we’re in the always-humid cloud forest, there isn’t much chance of
anything actually drying. I towel off my
camera as best I can. The lenses are all
completely fogged with moisture, so I open the camera as much as possible and
decide to let it dry overnight before taking a further assessment. I hold onto a thread of hope for my camera
since it is touted as being water resistant.
But again, note the distinction between “waterproof” and “water
resistant”.
Posada San
Pedro Lodge is a pleasant collection of thatched cabins with mosquito-netted
beds, a building with showers and toilets, and a dining hall. The power comes from a generator and the
generator only runs for a couple hours. But
the lights are on in the dining hall as we gather for the delicious dinner of
fish, rice, salad, and fruit that Hubert has prepared for us. Then we all go back to our cabins and climb
into our beds beneath our dry, warm blankets.
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| Kathy and Madeline by Our Posada San Pedro Lodge Cabin |
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