The next morning, we woke up early to hike to Cocho Otorongo, a nearby lake. This was our first real opportunity to trek through the rainforest and see the flora up close.
We were also able to spot several species of monkeys, like the loud-mouthed howler monkey, spider monkey, and the dusky titi monkey, and track them as they swung under the canopy. We had seen a few peccary (wild pigs) the day before, but in the forest our guides were able to tell us where they had been just 20 minutes ahead of us (hint: it stunk there).
In the afternoon, we hiked to Cocha (Lake) Salvador. This one had a communal catamaran that we could paddle to quietly move closer to wildlife.
This lake was also home to a family of giant river otter, an endangered species that we had to be very careful not to stress with our approach.
We saw hundreds of birds, including several beautiful varieties of macaws on their way home from the clay licks. We also got to encounter caymans up close...close enough that we were nervous when they disappeared underwater! We saw all of these things while scanning the water for the tell-tale ripples created by the otters. Eventually, we spotted the family and moved slowly closer to observe their playful behavior. Our guides spotted one of their dens on the lake shore and we hung around to watch them swim to their den and then pull themselves out of the water as they entered the den.
We returned at dusk to find another group (including an American biologist) waiting for the catamaran. As we hiked back to our under flashlight, Mitchel asked rhetorically, wasn't it curious that a group would set out across the lake after dark when all they might be able to see are caymans (whose eyes shine red under flashlight)? And hadn't we seen plenty of caymans during the day?
It turned out that some of the less ecology-minded groups operating in the area used the cover of night to actually catch the caymans, look at them up close and then release them into the water. Besides being an all-around unclassy thing to do, it is also illegal. It stresses out the caymans, can cause them to change mating behaviors, or cause them to leave the area altogether. And despite all of this, there is apparently little the small staff of forest rangers can do to curb this practice across such an expansive area.
After dinner, Mitchel took Dixie and I on a private night walk --something we had really enjoyed doing in the jungle in Kerala last year. Somehow, we were both much more comfortable seeing things like spiders, crickets and cockroaches in their natural habitat, than in New York (their adopted habitat). Sometimes we'd walk into a web or be inches from the critter before catching it with out flashlights. We saw many wolf spiders and champion spiders (a variety that probably won it's title unopposed through sheer intimidation). We rounded out our hike by spying some frogs and a small snake in the viper family.
The next morning we woke up at 4am to begin retracing our steps down the Manu River and the Madre de Dios --quicker this time because we were moving with the current. We made it to the Boca Manu airstrip (more like grass strip) around 10am and boarded the small propeller plane that would take us back to Cusco.
Flying under the clouds, the green blanket below us, cut by the occasional river, was beautiful in its area and uniformity. We really lucked out with perfect weather: it wasn't cloudy in the cloud forest on the second day, and it never really rained in the rainforest. We already know that the five days we spent in the Amazon basin will stand out as the highlight of our trip...but we're open to being proven wrong!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
The Rainforest (Part 2)
The next morning (day 3 in the forest) was a unique opportunity to sleep in until 7am or so, as we had to wait for a young British couple to join our group. They flew in on a tiny 16 passenger propeller plane and landed on the grass airstrip that is known as Boca Manu Airport. The same flight brings in supplies and returns with passengers and waste. It's the only flight the airstrip sees each day, and even then, the flight can be cancelled or delayed by the frecas, the cold front that blows in once or twice a month during the dry season. The logistics of moving supplies in and out are expertly managed. We had actually carried supplies since Cusco meant for the various camps we stayed at.
When we boarded our canoe again, we joined up with another guide, William, and his group of six. This time, we set off upstream on the Madre de Dios River, veering into the Manu River when it merged with the Madre de Dios.
Soon after we started up the Manu River, we crossed into the reserved zone of the forest and checked in. Scanning the sign-in book, we noticed only two other groups were scheduled to be in the reserved zone while we were there.
On the Manu River, we started seeing new forms of wildlife, most notably the white caiman and the much larger black caiman (5+ meters in length), cousins of alligators and crocodiles.
After several hours, we stopped on a sandy beach to use what Mitchel called the "bush toilet". When we boarded our boat again, it was clear something was quite wrong: William (the other guide) was bent over in agony. A few minutes before we stopped, he had apparently developed a sharp pain around his side or kidney.
William eventually got to his seat and we pushed off from the beach, but a few minutes later, he walked towards the back of the canoe where Mitchel, the Brits, Dixie and I were sitting. His loud groans were made worse by the fact that we were in the middle of the jungle, with no doctors among the group. We tried having him lay down on the pile of packs, but everything the poor guy did only seemed to make his pain worse.
The front of the boat wasn't particularly helpful, either. "Give him morphine!" someone shouted. Sorry Dr. Quinn, but I think we forgot to pack any.
Dixie and I urged Mitchel to consider our options: Could we turn around? (We would hardly reach the lightly-staffed checkpoint, let alone the airstrip, before nightfall.) Could we get help? (We weren't carrying radios or satellite phones and had hardly seen another boat since passing into the reserved zone.)
Could we give William something for the pain?
Between the Brits and us, we had ibuprofen (of course) and paracetemol (a drug we don't seem to get in the states, but I'd heard of it thanks to British comedies and British cousins). But William had already taken two pills when the pain started, and after more back and forth questioning than it should have took, we established it was just ciprofloxin (a prescription antibiotic) and paracetemol. That made the decision relatively easy: check the paracetemol label for any obvious conflicts and give the maximum allowable dosage of paracetemol.
With his pain relieved, William finally went to sleep, and strangely --but fortunately-- he didn't experience the pain again during our trip.
_______________
William has a doctor's appointment in a few days and hopefully they can sort out what happened.
When we boarded our canoe again, we joined up with another guide, William, and his group of six. This time, we set off upstream on the Madre de Dios River, veering into the Manu River when it merged with the Madre de Dios.
Soon after we started up the Manu River, we crossed into the reserved zone of the forest and checked in. Scanning the sign-in book, we noticed only two other groups were scheduled to be in the reserved zone while we were there.
On the Manu River, we started seeing new forms of wildlife, most notably the white caiman and the much larger black caiman (5+ meters in length), cousins of alligators and crocodiles.
After several hours, we stopped on a sandy beach to use what Mitchel called the "bush toilet". When we boarded our boat again, it was clear something was quite wrong: William (the other guide) was bent over in agony. A few minutes before we stopped, he had apparently developed a sharp pain around his side or kidney.
William eventually got to his seat and we pushed off from the beach, but a few minutes later, he walked towards the back of the canoe where Mitchel, the Brits, Dixie and I were sitting. His loud groans were made worse by the fact that we were in the middle of the jungle, with no doctors among the group. We tried having him lay down on the pile of packs, but everything the poor guy did only seemed to make his pain worse.
The front of the boat wasn't particularly helpful, either. "Give him morphine!" someone shouted. Sorry Dr. Quinn, but I think we forgot to pack any.
Dixie and I urged Mitchel to consider our options: Could we turn around? (We would hardly reach the lightly-staffed checkpoint, let alone the airstrip, before nightfall.) Could we get help? (We weren't carrying radios or satellite phones and had hardly seen another boat since passing into the reserved zone.)
Could we give William something for the pain?
Between the Brits and us, we had ibuprofen (of course) and paracetemol (a drug we don't seem to get in the states, but I'd heard of it thanks to British comedies and British cousins). But William had already taken two pills when the pain started, and after more back and forth questioning than it should have took, we established it was just ciprofloxin (a prescription antibiotic) and paracetemol. That made the decision relatively easy: check the paracetemol label for any obvious conflicts and give the maximum allowable dosage of paracetemol.
With his pain relieved, William finally went to sleep, and strangely --but fortunately-- he didn't experience the pain again during our trip.
_______________
William has a doctor's appointment in a few days and hopefully they can sort out what happened.
The Rainforest (Part 1)
Just before lunchtime on our second day in the forest we had boarded our motorized canoe with Mario, our boat driver, and Jose. We'd spend the next two and a half days navigating downstream on the Madre Rios river (a major tributary of the Amazon River) and upstream on the Manu River.
The goal of our first afternoon in the canoe was to reach our camp outside Boca Manu, the last village outside of the reserved zone.
Boating on the river, besides being the only way to travel so deep into the park in a short period of time, gave us an opportunity to see many more birds and animals that fed or drank at the river. We saw a large number of egrets, cormorants, terns, kingfishers, and the beautiful cocoi heron. Unfortunately, Mitchel's encyclopedic knowledge of the forest wildlife quickly out-paced my rather short short-term memory, so there are many pictures that I'm not going to be able to label myself...which is why I got his email address.
Friday, July 30, 2010
On a side note
For the last year or so, I've worked with Grameen Foundation on a volunteer basis. I've seen firsthand the excellent work they do in Peru, Bolivia and around the world. In short, they help Microfinance institutions in these countries expand their reach to more clients through better access to capital, better strategy and better technology.
Grameen Foundation is currently participating in the Members' Project challenge from American Express. The winner (the social organization with the most votes) wins $200,000.
I'd appreciate it if you could take a minute to click the link on the right side of this page and vote for Grameen Foundation. Then, please return to the page each week in August to vote again.
Thanks and greetings from Puno (Peru)...we move on to Bolivia tomorrow!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Cloud Forest
On Thursday morning, our rainforest guide, Mitchel, met us at our hotel in Cusco. We joined another young couple from France, and our driver, Guillermo. The six of us were headed to Manu National Park, one of the best-preserved rainforests in the world and home to one in nine bird species on Earth. The park is divided into three zones: the first open to anyone, the second restricted to scientists and visitors carrying special permits, and the third restricted to the native people--some of whom have no contact with the outside world. We were headed into the first two zones, the zones culturales and the reserved zone. The tourism permitted in these first two zones helps the government protect the third, much larger, restricted zone.
We began our trip into the rainforest by driving through the villages that surround Cusco. Each one is known for having mastered a local specialty like chicharones (fried pork), cuy (roasted guinea pig), or the large, round chuta bread. We made our first stop in Oropessa to watch the chuta bread being made in a local home--one of about 25 in the area that provide several hundred loaves each to Cusco on a daily basis.
By lunchtime, we had made it into the cloud forest, the portion of forest that sits on the foothills of the Andes and is cloaked in clouds most of the time. We later learned that many tours skip the cloud forest (in favor of flying directly into the rainforest), but the steep incline of the mountains gave us a fantastic view into the canopy immediately below and the animals that live there. We took several walks along the winding mud road, where we got up close to a number of birds and a family of wooley monkeys.
The next morning, we woke up before sunrise to go to a lek where the Cock of the Rock birds congregate at dawn. The male Cock of the Rock --the national bird of Peru-- is a large, bright red bird with the shape and grace of a giant pigeon. At this time of year, Mitchel told us, few females come to the lek. But like bars all over the world, the males keep showing up in the hopes a potential mate will drop by.
After breakfast, we stopped to watch some hummingbirds and a series of other birds I can't seem to remember.
In the afternoon, after driving down to the base of the mountains, we left the car, Guillermo and the cloud forest behind. We boarded a motorized canoe and began our journey into the rainforest...
We began our trip into the rainforest by driving through the villages that surround Cusco. Each one is known for having mastered a local specialty like chicharones (fried pork), cuy (roasted guinea pig), or the large, round chuta bread. We made our first stop in Oropessa to watch the chuta bread being made in a local home--one of about 25 in the area that provide several hundred loaves each to Cusco on a daily basis.
By lunchtime, we had made it into the cloud forest, the portion of forest that sits on the foothills of the Andes and is cloaked in clouds most of the time. We later learned that many tours skip the cloud forest (in favor of flying directly into the rainforest), but the steep incline of the mountains gave us a fantastic view into the canopy immediately below and the animals that live there. We took several walks along the winding mud road, where we got up close to a number of birds and a family of wooley monkeys.
The next morning, we woke up before sunrise to go to a lek where the Cock of the Rock birds congregate at dawn. The male Cock of the Rock --the national bird of Peru-- is a large, bright red bird with the shape and grace of a giant pigeon. At this time of year, Mitchel told us, few females come to the lek. But like bars all over the world, the males keep showing up in the hopes a potential mate will drop by.
After breakfast, we stopped to watch some hummingbirds and a series of other birds I can't seem to remember.
In the afternoon, after driving down to the base of the mountains, we left the car, Guillermo and the cloud forest behind. We boarded a motorized canoe and began our journey into the rainforest...
Monday, July 26, 2010
Returned from the Amazon jungle
Dixie and I spent the last 5 days in Manu National Park, one of the best preserved sections of the Amazon rainforest.
We had an amazing guide, named Mitchel, and saw once in a lifetime sights, which I'll describe in more detail in a later post. Right now we're a bit exhausted, having had 4-5am wake-up calls to catch as much wildlife as possible.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Pikillaqta
Just made a short detour to the pre-Incan city of Pikillaqta, where you can see many examples of architectural principles that the Inca borrowed.
Among them:
- inward sloping walls, to protect against earthquakes
- square city blocks
- two-story architecture
[Although we took plenty of pictures, I can only post ones that I take with the phone at the moment.]
Small coins!
When traveling to a new country, it is always wise to familiarize yourself with it's currency.
It appears that we may have been over-tipping...by a lot. We just realized that some of the smallest coins are, in fact, the equivalent of about $1-2...NOT about 1/10th of that as we had somehow assumed.
The next 18 days
We've now finalized our transportation and accommodation for the rest of our trip.
Today: Cusco
7/21: Sacred Valley
7/22 to 7/26: Trek into the Amazon in Manu National Park
7/27 to 7/28: Machu Picchu
7/29: Travel to Lake Titicaca (Puno)
7/30 to 7/31: Visit in Lake Titicaca
8/1: La Paz (Bolivia)
8/2: Visit the ruins of Tiwanaku
8/3: Travel from La Paz to Salar de Uyuni (the salt flats) by bus and train
8/4: Salar de Uyuni
8/5: Salar de Uyuni
8/6: Fly from La Paz to Lima
8/7: Return home
Monday, July 19, 2010
Day 1: Lima
I can't say much about Lima just yet. We only covered about a mile in the Miraflores district today. But boy did we cover it!
We started our day by walking to a travel agent down the road to hopefully give us some direction for the remainder of our trip. We were a bit underwhelmed, so we walked a bit to find another travel agent. And that's when we hit the travel agency jackpot. One street with probably 10 different agencies in 10 blocks. We dropped into several of them and ultimately went with the one that was the most hidden (7th floor, no signage) and most secure (the door lock needed to be remotely released to enter or exit)...but not for those reasons.
I'm skipping ahead, because as I write this, it is past 7:30pm and we're still sorting out the next 18 days. A big thanks to Ivan for staying almost 2 hours past closing time for us. If all works out, we'll head to Cusco at 5am tomorrow morning.
[Note: although I'm writing offline on Monday night, I'm not sure when this will get posted. Perhaps the next time we pass a Starbucks with wifi.]
After a short day in Lima, here's what I noticed:
- Limeños (locals) are very friendly
- there do not seem to be many tourists in the city
- crossing a busy road requires you to wait for a car to also cross the road along with you, so that you can use it as a shield
- otherwise, street rules here follow the Indian paradigm: there are few signs/lights so a little bullying is required -- but too much will get you into an accident
- you would be hard pressed to find another city with cleaner streets and sidewalks than the ones we've seen in Miraflores -- we saw one shopkeeper _vacuuming_ the sidewalk in front of her shop!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Panama
Arrived in Panama City, where we have a 6 hour layover. We got a little bonus by flying over the Panama Canal and a beautiful coastline before landing.
We're off...
We boarded the plane just now. First stop is Panama City. We should get in to Lima around 11:30pm ET.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
My first 'Spanish' lesson
Hardly two days before we depart and we just made our first hotel booking. Dixie was otherwise occupied when I called, so I was left to my own devices [once again, Dixie is going to be the family translator on this trip].
Luckily, the person on the other end of the line understood English. However, when it came time to take my name down, we were back to speaking two different languages. We went through the letters in my first name, one by one, as I tried to think of words that might be a bit more common in South America ("I as in 'Iguana', Z as in 'Zebra'...Zebra?). After taking two minutes to get my first name correct -- I blame my tendency to mumble and my cell phone connection above all else -- I had an epiphany:
"My last name is 'Cama' as in 'bed'.
"Bed like Spanish bed?"
"Yes, correct."
"Okay Mr. Cama, we'll see you on Sunday."
Luckily, the person on the other end of the line understood English. However, when it came time to take my name down, we were back to speaking two different languages. We went through the letters in my first name, one by one, as I tried to think of words that might be a bit more common in South America ("I as in 'Iguana', Z as in 'Zebra'...Zebra?). After taking two minutes to get my first name correct -- I blame my tendency to mumble and my cell phone connection above all else -- I had an epiphany:
"My last name is 'Cama' as in 'bed'.
"Bed like Spanish bed?"
"Yes, correct."
"Okay Mr. Cama, we'll see you on Sunday."
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Our Itinerary
Dixie and I are heading to Peru and Bolivia in a few days. Busy work schedules, World Cup matches and two weddings prevented us from planning this trip in a more orderly fashion. But we have plane tickets, our yellow fever vaccinations and two guide books, and from there we're ready to wing it.
Some places we hope to see:
Salar de Uyuni Potosi Machu Picchu
Lima Lake Titicaca Parque Nacional del Manu
Cuzco La Paz Colca Canyon
Cuzco La Paz Colca Canyon
If you'd like to keep up with us while we're away, subscribe using the link on the right side of the page.
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