Peru Trip, first 2 days
Wow, it’s a LOT of travel to get to Peru’s jungle. Here is what it took to get here, all times are SF to make it easy. Peru is in Midwest time zone, 2 hrs ahead of SF.
7:30 am – Super Shuttle pickup
9:44 am – SF – LA
2:05 pm – LA – Lima
11pm – land Lima. Lima’s airport is 40 min from Lima, so you have to wait in the airport, or pay $200 for a room at the hotel attached to the airport.
3:50 am - Lima – Cusco
5:05 am – land Cusco. Meet expedition people at the airport. Cusco is at 10,800’ elevation, so MA almost immediately started throwing up from altitude sickness. This continued until we were on the airplane to the jungle and descended.
10am – take off for jungle airstrip in a Cessna Grand Caravan, single engine turboprop.
10:45 am – land jungle airstrip @ Boca Manu, elevation 1500’. The Andes really drop off very steeply from Cusco to Boca Manu!
11:15 am – Load into boat to drive down river to Manu wildlife preserve
1pm – Arrive Manu wildlife preserve. Whew, we made it!
This place is located in virgin rainforest in one of the most biodiverse areas of the world. The river that we are located next to eventually feeds into the Amazon. It’s really flat here though – think about this – it’s probably 2000km of river, but only 1500 ft of elevation change for this water to make its way to the Atlantic Ocean
We’re here at a pretty good time – the end of the dry season. The reason it’s good is that a lot of the normal food sources from the rainy season are depleted, which makes the animals roam around looking for food.
We got up at 5am this morning and took a 20 min boat ride to an area where the former path of the river (it changed suddenly during the rainy season 4 years ago) had worn away the land to expose the layers of clay. Parrots and Macaws eat this clay because it helps to somehow counter the toxins that are present in the berries that they eat for food. So, each day at dawn they show up to this clay lick to eat. By they, I mean hundreds of birds. It’s REALLY cool. They have a little blind set up where you can come with your binoculars to watch them up close. First the smaller parrots come. These parrots look very much like the parrots that live in the Telegraph Hill area of San Francisco, and even make a very similar sound. Maybe this is where the pets that originated the flock came from? There are about 6 different species that show up though, and their markings are slightly different. Sometimes, something must spook the birds, and they will all fly off the lick at the same time. The noise of 100-200 parrots all flapping their wings to take off at the same time is pretty neat. Once the parrots are done, the macaws come. These are the big colorful red and green birds that most people think they will see a picture of if they look up “parrot” in the dictionary. Sometimes they are kept as pets, or are with street performers to take photos with in touristy areas. Really beautiful birds. When they fly, they are extremely graceful. They go around in pairs and are “married”. They fly together, sit together, clean one another, etc. They act like they’re in love. If you see 3 together, it’s parents with their baby. Makes me wonder if it’s a mean thing for these birds that are captivity to have to live alone, since there were no solitary macaws in the wild.
On the way back, we got to see some pretty neat things along the river:
- A capybara, the world’s largest rodent. About the size of a golden retriever. It had just crossed the river and was resting on the bank. I guess it eats grass.
- A Giant Anteater. Our guide hasn’t seen one all year, so we were lucky. This thing was really neat, probably 2 ft tall and 4 ft long, all shaggy. That thing must eat a ton of ants every day! Good for it, as there are ants everywhere here. The biggest ones I’ve seen are probably ½ inch long. Yuck!
- A turtle up on a log with a butterfly on its head. I guess the butterflies lick the salt from the turtle’s eye tears in some sort of symbiotic relationship. Cool to see that in person.
After lunch and an afternoon nap, we took a 1 ½ hour hike into the jungle to another clay lick and another observation platform to wait for the tapir. The tapir is the largest mammal in the jungle, weighing in at 250 Kg, about 3 times the weight of a human. The tapir usually comes late in the day, so we got there at 4:30 (it’s dark by 6). We waited silently under mosquito netting for about 1.5 hrs (another group had to wait 5 hours) for the tapir to arrive, but it was worth the wait – it was cool to see such a big animal up close in the wild. At the closest, we were only about 10 ft from it up in the platform.
The Manu area that we are is virgin jungle because it’s impenetrable. They aren’t kidding when they say this – when we’re on the trail, I think the furthest you can see is about 30 ft, and that’s what you can SEE. If you wanted to walk those 30 ft off the trail, you’d have to fight your way through a mass of vegetation.
There are no lions, tigers or bears here, so who is the king of this jungle? Turns out it depends on where you are. On land, it’s the jaguar, the world’s 3rd largest cat (behind lions and tigers). The tapir we saw had a scar from a jaguar attack on it’s hind quarters. When the tapir is young, it is vulnerable since it is small enough that the jaguar can get it’s jaws around the tapir’s neck. When it’s older, the neck is too thick. When the jaguar attacks the tapir, the tapir runs really fast, and tries to run next to the trees with spines on them, which a lot of the palms do. The spines are 4-6 inches in length, so the jaguar doesn’t hold on too long when that happens, and the tapir can escape.
If you’re on the water, it’s the Anaconda. The Anaconda is the world’s most powerful constrictor, and humans are easy prey. Crocs, no problem. The predator of the anaconda is the Giant Otter (6 ft!), but it takes a group of them to take one down. Apparently, the tapir also has a defense the anaconda. It can make it’s body very small when the anaconda is constricting (think of holding your breath to make your body smaller), and then it can very powerfully blow itself back up, causing the anaconda to let go, or risk being literally ripped apart from the force of the tapir’s expansion.
So, it seems to me that the tapir is the king of the jungle, even though it’s a plant eater. Our guide disagreed though since the tapir is not a meat eater.
Check out our photos at: http://www.neumannfamily.org/peru
7:30 am – Super Shuttle pickup
9:44 am – SF – LA
2:05 pm – LA – Lima
11pm – land Lima. Lima’s airport is 40 min from Lima, so you have to wait in the airport, or pay $200 for a room at the hotel attached to the airport.
3:50 am - Lima – Cusco
5:05 am – land Cusco. Meet expedition people at the airport. Cusco is at 10,800’ elevation, so MA almost immediately started throwing up from altitude sickness. This continued until we were on the airplane to the jungle and descended.
10am – take off for jungle airstrip in a Cessna Grand Caravan, single engine turboprop.
10:45 am – land jungle airstrip @ Boca Manu, elevation 1500’. The Andes really drop off very steeply from Cusco to Boca Manu!
11:15 am – Load into boat to drive down river to Manu wildlife preserve
1pm – Arrive Manu wildlife preserve. Whew, we made it!
This place is located in virgin rainforest in one of the most biodiverse areas of the world. The river that we are located next to eventually feeds into the Amazon. It’s really flat here though – think about this – it’s probably 2000km of river, but only 1500 ft of elevation change for this water to make its way to the Atlantic Ocean
We’re here at a pretty good time – the end of the dry season. The reason it’s good is that a lot of the normal food sources from the rainy season are depleted, which makes the animals roam around looking for food.
We got up at 5am this morning and took a 20 min boat ride to an area where the former path of the river (it changed suddenly during the rainy season 4 years ago) had worn away the land to expose the layers of clay. Parrots and Macaws eat this clay because it helps to somehow counter the toxins that are present in the berries that they eat for food. So, each day at dawn they show up to this clay lick to eat. By they, I mean hundreds of birds. It’s REALLY cool. They have a little blind set up where you can come with your binoculars to watch them up close. First the smaller parrots come. These parrots look very much like the parrots that live in the Telegraph Hill area of San Francisco, and even make a very similar sound. Maybe this is where the pets that originated the flock came from? There are about 6 different species that show up though, and their markings are slightly different. Sometimes, something must spook the birds, and they will all fly off the lick at the same time. The noise of 100-200 parrots all flapping their wings to take off at the same time is pretty neat. Once the parrots are done, the macaws come. These are the big colorful red and green birds that most people think they will see a picture of if they look up “parrot” in the dictionary. Sometimes they are kept as pets, or are with street performers to take photos with in touristy areas. Really beautiful birds. When they fly, they are extremely graceful. They go around in pairs and are “married”. They fly together, sit together, clean one another, etc. They act like they’re in love. If you see 3 together, it’s parents with their baby. Makes me wonder if it’s a mean thing for these birds that are captivity to have to live alone, since there were no solitary macaws in the wild.
On the way back, we got to see some pretty neat things along the river:
- A capybara, the world’s largest rodent. About the size of a golden retriever. It had just crossed the river and was resting on the bank. I guess it eats grass.
- A Giant Anteater. Our guide hasn’t seen one all year, so we were lucky. This thing was really neat, probably 2 ft tall and 4 ft long, all shaggy. That thing must eat a ton of ants every day! Good for it, as there are ants everywhere here. The biggest ones I’ve seen are probably ½ inch long. Yuck!
- A turtle up on a log with a butterfly on its head. I guess the butterflies lick the salt from the turtle’s eye tears in some sort of symbiotic relationship. Cool to see that in person.
After lunch and an afternoon nap, we took a 1 ½ hour hike into the jungle to another clay lick and another observation platform to wait for the tapir. The tapir is the largest mammal in the jungle, weighing in at 250 Kg, about 3 times the weight of a human. The tapir usually comes late in the day, so we got there at 4:30 (it’s dark by 6). We waited silently under mosquito netting for about 1.5 hrs (another group had to wait 5 hours) for the tapir to arrive, but it was worth the wait – it was cool to see such a big animal up close in the wild. At the closest, we were only about 10 ft from it up in the platform.
The Manu area that we are is virgin jungle because it’s impenetrable. They aren’t kidding when they say this – when we’re on the trail, I think the furthest you can see is about 30 ft, and that’s what you can SEE. If you wanted to walk those 30 ft off the trail, you’d have to fight your way through a mass of vegetation.
There are no lions, tigers or bears here, so who is the king of this jungle? Turns out it depends on where you are. On land, it’s the jaguar, the world’s 3rd largest cat (behind lions and tigers). The tapir we saw had a scar from a jaguar attack on it’s hind quarters. When the tapir is young, it is vulnerable since it is small enough that the jaguar can get it’s jaws around the tapir’s neck. When it’s older, the neck is too thick. When the jaguar attacks the tapir, the tapir runs really fast, and tries to run next to the trees with spines on them, which a lot of the palms do. The spines are 4-6 inches in length, so the jaguar doesn’t hold on too long when that happens, and the tapir can escape.
If you’re on the water, it’s the Anaconda. The Anaconda is the world’s most powerful constrictor, and humans are easy prey. Crocs, no problem. The predator of the anaconda is the Giant Otter (6 ft!), but it takes a group of them to take one down. Apparently, the tapir also has a defense the anaconda. It can make it’s body very small when the anaconda is constricting (think of holding your breath to make your body smaller), and then it can very powerfully blow itself back up, causing the anaconda to let go, or risk being literally ripped apart from the force of the tapir’s expansion.
So, it seems to me that the tapir is the king of the jungle, even though it’s a plant eater. Our guide disagreed though since the tapir is not a meat eater.
Check out our photos at: http://www.neumannfamily.org/peru
posted by Chris at 3:46 PM
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