Manu

We previously left off with us getting ready for the dreaded nightbus from Nazca (588m) to Cuzco (3399m).

The nightmare started with, once again, a ridiculously luxurious bus including VIP treatment (it´s possible that somewhere we´ve taken a wrong turn when looking for the definition of ´backpacking´ =)  The nightmare continued with seats on the second floor, all the way in the front with windows all around for picture perfect views. So … seats in reclining position, feet up on our footrests, blankets at hand and we were off.

We were greeted with ever-climbing winding roads into the Andes where views were replaced with utter darkness. This was of course not distressing at all and our hearts weren´t in our throats as occasionally the view of the road would disappear completely … mountain roads take some getting used to, especially when travelling by bus!

All in all though, the drive was remarkably easy and hassle-free, no nightmare at all. We were both hit by a sudden moment where oxygen seemed in short supply (highest point 4200m), but that was mostly that and we arrived in Cuzco early in the morning, all in one piece, with only Martial suffering from a mild headache.

Our hostel turned out to be another beauty with a room that could´ve fit our whole London apartment. Unpack, get things ready for our Amazon trip and head out for a first glimpse of Cuzco.

Cuzco is stunningly lovely! A maze of little streets and shops. Old colonial buildings everywhere. Intricately carved wooden balconies of restaurants and bars overlooking the main Plaza. Arched galleries with artisans shops. Etc. etc. we love it!

And we arrived on a day where the Peruvians celebrated both a local music festival as well as Halloween, so the town was a cheerful chaos of merry people, music, kids in costumes trick-or-treating and street hawkers trying to sell their wares. What a greeting.

Martial is starting to feel rougher at this stage though. We put this down to altitude sickness. El remarkably fine, and even drank both her own and Martial´s pisco sours served with dinner – apparently a definite no-no for those trying to adjust to the higher altitude!

Early the next morning, we set off on the 2 day journey to the Amazon.

The roads were again crazycrazycrazy. Gravel and sand hugging mountains and cliffs. Seriously scary at times, and seriously gorgeous views throughout.

Little piles of stones by the side of the road signified a steeper/higher than normal drop, with sheer mountainside dropping thousands of feet below on the other side, generally following a makeshift sign exclaiming ´Peligro! Un solo carril!´ – ´Warning! One lane only!´ Meeting other vehicles on this road was muchos fun.

After climbing for a few hours through dust and arid mountainsides, we can see hints of the landscape beginning to change. Grass becomes green, we start seeing more bushes, more trees, more clouds. But still we´re hit by surprise as we hit the summit (4020m) and things change very quickly indeed. No more dry brown Andean peaks but instead verdant green slopes that descend from the peaks through cloud forest to Amazonian rainforest. What a sight. And what a change, so full and so complete.

The road this side of the summit is as hair raising, but the views completely different and everyone is glued to their windows until we reach our first destination - Cock of the Rock lodge. We´re greeted by a group of monkeys, the sound of the river rushing past our cabin and smell of the forest. One could get used to this. =)

The next day we´re up at silly o´clock (it would become our habit to get up at 5am). Unfortunately, Martial’s malaise hasn´t disappeared with the high altitudes. Evidently not altitude sickness after all. But for the once in a lifetime Amazonian rainforest experience, teeth were gritted, and potential causes of this weird fever pushed as far to the back of our minds as possible! 

We continue first by bus. Little villages of small wooden huts (with internet cafe if you´ll believe, hehe), bumpy BUMPY roads, but mostly trees and plants of all imaginable shapes and sizes.

Then we hop into a motorised canoe that´ll ferry us across the river system deeper into the jungle. The river is a shallow thing but wide. The effect is wonderful as the water gets pushed to all kinds of different height levels in ways we´d have thought physics would´ve disallowed.

The next few days are characterised by stunning forest, zigzagging brown rivers, and an almost complete lack of human presence. Trees and plants in countless variety crowd on the shores of the river, canopy trailing vines and epiphites down to the bushes below, creating a blanket of green.

The trees and plants here are all competing over scarce supplies and the different tactics they use to beat the opposition are sometimes dumbfounding. Figs starting their growth at the top of the trees, lowering their roots down and around the bough of their ´host´, strangling it as they´re building their own support. Hollow trees housing ants that will attack anything that touches their homes. Spikes the size of our hands. And toxins in all manner of nastyness. It´s so interesting to hear and see.

As for the range of wildlife in the Amazon, everything tries to make itself hard to eat, so there are not so many animals but enough to make for some fun spotting. Dozens and dozens of species of birds, from tiny to huge, poisonous frogs, snakes, caiman, capybaras, giant otters (!!), tarantulas the size of your palm, bizarre looking insects, etc.

In these days we move deeper and deeper into the forest, into the Reserved Zone where humans are not allowed to live, hunt, farm, etc. (exceptions, the native nomads that still wonder through the jungle and occasionally get spotted). We hike over small paths through the bush, take the longboat further upstream, binoculars to our eyes to find those elusive animals, get on a catamaran with peddles to explore the beautiful ´oxbow´ lakes for giant otters, caiman and other beasties.

Our base camp is a series of huts with mesh walls in the middle of the rainforest. You can lie in your bed and peer through mosquito net and mesh to the trees outside. SUCH an experience.

Unfortunately Martial is still mucking about with his health. Typical =/ The fever´s gotten worse, so an impromptu course of our emergency antibiotics seems in order, which does at least put a lid on the worst of it.

But it doesn´t take away from the fact that this area is absolutely stunning and gorgeous.

Manu TBC

Due to technical issues, aka total exhaustion on the part of the authors!, the start of the Manu adventure will be fully uploaded some time soon… Watch this space!

Manu continued….

On leaving the National Reserve, we headed back down the river 5 hours in our home-from-home motorised canoe, to the lovely Blanquillo Lodge. We realised just how much our standards had altered when we all got extremely excited by this lodge offering showers and flushing loos UNDER THE SAME ROOF as the bedrooms. Amazing.  And, if you waited a few minutes, the solar-heated shower water actually reached luke warm! Heavenly!

The long periods spent in the canoe were generally blissful, when the rainforest wasn´t doing the rain thing:

A very pleasant way to get from A to B. However, it being the start of the rainy season, the rainstorms were pretty intense, and the whole canoe experience slightly different in wet weather!

The Blanquillo Lodge was a short dawn hike through the forest to the Blanco Macaw Clay Lick, where scores of red and green macaws gather most mornings to, er, Lick Clay. Apparently there are lots of nutrients in the soil around this area which attract the animals, and we were blessed with perfect weather and no predatory beasties to scare the birds off. An amazing sight.

We also had another chance to see the giant otters, this time the family living in Lago Blanco. Fate smiled on us once again, and from our silent wooden catamaran not only did we see 6 otters, but they also followed the catamaran for a while down the lake. Truly magical.

Darwin, our wonderful guide, paddling the catamaran, and the otters looking at us:

When you think there are only 600 giant otters left in the whole of the Amazonian Rainforest, the sightings this trip become that much more significant – over the whole week we got to see almost 3 per cent of the entire Amazonian population!

From there we headed back across the river to one of the tallest trees in the forest, a Ceiba, standing tall at 60m. This particular one had been adapted for crazy non-vertigo sufferers, with a scaffold of steps leading right up into the canopy branches to a platform. At first glance, El decided there was no way on earth she would ever, EVER, conquer the fear and actually make it to the top…

The rest of the group leapt sure footedly up the steep stairs, and El followed slowly slllooooowwwly behind with the help and patience of the fabulous guide Jose (what a fabulous guide indeed). And looking back at this picture, she still can´t actually believe she made it up there. Proof:

From there, back into our trusty canoe and up river to the Yine Lodge again, where poor Martial began to feel really rough. He´d been fighting a fever since leaving Cusco (at first we thought it was altitude sickness, but when it continued at 250masl we thought there may be something more to it..), and despite taking our emergency course of antibiotics, this was the night his temperature reached an impressive 39.4! Enough was enough, and we left the following morning on the 2 day journey back to Cusco. For the record, M is alive and well, and now only suffering a mild cold – fever miraculously disappeared on leaving the forest and fingers crossed will not return. Never a dull moment!!

We´re now in beautiful Cusco

and we´re off to hike the Inca Trail tomorrow until the 16th so will be out of contact again til then. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for good weather – arrival at Machu Picchu sun gate is always scheduled for dawn, and is pretty pants in the fog! SUN for November 16th SUNSUNSUNSUNSUN… 

Adios chicos xx

We´re back!

Hi All!

A bit of a false post here with, as you can see, very little in the way of stories and photos … they will come very soon!

But for now we wanted to thank everyone for their lovely comments in our absence! And to let you know that we just arrived back into Cusco again from our blindingly beautiful (and smelly) trip into the Amazon. We don´t yet have access to our main packs (company office and vault are closed), so no opportunities yet to play around with photos.

And for the keen observers amongst you; we are indeed back a little ahead of schedule … but not for any emergencies, this just works better in the end =)

Watch this space!

Love

El & Martial