Getting there
We flew into (and returned from) Puerto Maldonado with LAN from Cusco. This is a 45 minute flight from 3500m dry, altiplano Cusco in the Andes to Puerto Maldonado at 350m in the heart of the amazonian jungle. The flight is incredible (the road trip is supposed to be as well but 18 hours on a truck just didn´t appeal!). From out and over the the snow capped peaks near Cusco and then hitting the clouds and then the next thing we saw was huge flat rainforest that stretches as far as we could see only broken up by lazy winding S-bend brown rivers.
Puerto Maldonado
The town itself is pretty remote and hard to get to so most people get around on motobikes and motokars (which is a 3 wheeler motorbike with a cabin for 2 passengers) and the odd car or tourist bus. Its sooo cheap compared to Cusco and so relaxed too. Hardly any tourists or gringos as most tourists get whisked off to expensive lodges up the Madro Dios or Tambopata rivers. Great local places for icecream, local bbq fish, pork, banana dishes, chicken etc and beer is only 1 eur per litre bottle AND ICY cold ... agggghhh so blissful!!
Boat trip up the Los Piedras
To get to the lodge where we were staying is a good 8 hour river trip (with an outboard motor) or 2 days with a peke peke motor (more basic but much slower motor). We left Puerto early- ish. Its hard to explain how large the rivers are and these ones are onyl small compared to the Amazon when it really gets going! Mostly the river is anything from 50 - 100m wide and the current depends on the rain in preceding days. There heaps of debris, logs, trees etc washed down too in the bigger rains this time of year. Saw lots of birds (herons, toucans, etc - sorry I cant remember all the names and left my little notebook in the hostel!), capuchin and squirrel monkeys, a capybara (worlds largest rodent '- its like a hairy pig) and the rainforest along the way is very impressive. The trip back yesterday was much faster (as its down stream) but we had the added excitement of torrential rain which made it difficult for the boat driver to see sand banks (a potential boat turning over hazard) so slowed us down a bit and then about 1km from the port the engine seized. Luckily some local fishermen kindly steered us back using their boat and the afternoon wasn´t spent sitting in torrential rain desperately wondering how we´d get back!!
Los Piedras Research Centre
The lodge itself is really cool ... set up about 300m from the river with lots of outdoor light, hammocks, and bedrooms set up with mossie nets and such that it never got too hot at night. Really tropical and lovely feeling around the lodge. Its pretty basic as there´s no electricity so cooking is done by gas or the clay oven. There´s 2 little farms nearby which supply fresh bananas, herbs, avocados, limes, pineapples and more when the season is right. I have to say fresh banans are the BEST .. how will we ever go back to that muck they sell in shops at home! Dunk also had to get converted to the thought of eating bananas as a main part of a email ... yummo fried bananas with eggs or dinner or in a curry type sauce!
There´s lots of trails out from the lodge, along with a mammal colpa, macaw colpa, 20m viewing tower (with stairs), 50m platform in a big tree (for this you had to be hoisted in a harness onto the platform so my stupid head for heights prevented me doig this) and just heaps of birds, mammals, frogs, insects, more birds, monkeys and interesting stuff to see.
The Work
In comparison to my normal office job this is not work. The main work was
- macaw colpa observation - counting how many macaws (and other birds) visited the colpa (which is a clay lick by the river that the birds visit to get missing minerals for their diet - in human terms its like the pub except they go early in the morning!) over a 6 hour period on a given morning. We saw 130 mealy parrots one morning and the highlight was 130 green & red macaws with about 50 feeding on the colpa. Incredible.
- transects. This is a 4 hour slow walk (YES I learnt to walk slowly!!) along a 4km trail counting mammals mostly but also some birds. Really cool as we usually saw monkeys (howlers, dusky titi, squirrel, spider or capuchins), squirrels, heaps of birds, deer (well Dunk did), Saki monkeys (Dunk did), frogs, etc.
- Vegetation - probably the equivalent to writing documentation ;) someone has to do it! Would have been fine except for the plagues of mossies that descended on us (especially on the last few days after some really heavy rain). This involved counting and marking trees.
Would HIGHLY recommend this trip. Its complelty allowed us to get a proper feel for the jungle and at the same time learn heaps from Emma and JJ. Was an incredible experience.
Highlights for me were:-
- macaw colpa
- seeing monkeys on a daily basis
- beautiful walks on the trails
- chilling out and not having to think about normal travel hassles for a whole 2 weeks
- seeing SO many cool looking frogs on night walks
- seeing all the bizarre insects and fungi out there - incredible stuff!
- just being in the rain forest for so long - and having such great local knowledge at hand all the time. Thanks Emma and JJ and also Vicky, Holly and Edgar for sharing all that with us!
Speaking of which ... next stage is onto Bolivia where we´re going to spend a couple of days around Lake Titicica and then onto La Paz before heading east ... well not sure exactly yet what the plan is but will let ye know when we get to La Paz!
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