PERU’S JUNGLE LOOK!
Most people head for Machu Picchu but Peru’s vibrant rainforest is just as magical
You’D better not put your hand there. Andy Whitworth’s voice is calm, but the note of urgency is enough to make me pause, arm frozen in mid-air. on the next tree trunk, two huge bullet ants are waiting. ‘They’re called bullet ants because, if they bite you, it feels like you’ve been shot,’ he says, his Manchester accent at home in the jungle.
Peru is a country well defined in our imaginations, the Andes clawing the heavens, that grand Inca settlement Machu Pi cchucr ad led within. As of May, it will be more accessible when British Airways launches three direct flights every week to the capital Lima.
But today, I’m on the remote edge of Manu National Park, in the Amazonian south-east of the country.
This vast rainforest area is a realm of glorious biodiversity, hitting 13,780 ft where it grazes the Andes, plunging to 492 ft in its tropical depths; home to 15,000 plant types and 1,000 bird species. Impossible to reach by road, it is best encountered by boat along the Madre de Dios and Manu rivers that meander through the South American interior.
How on earth have I found myself here? Back down the trail, the Manu Learning Centre (MLC) is a clue. It was founded in 2002 by Quinn Meyer, a Londoner who visited the region on a gap year, and was s shocked by the illega illegal land clearance and logging. He set up the MLC, and Cr Crees (Spanish for ‘y ‘you believe’) as an e eco - project on s sustainable rainf forest use. Now the MLC h has a staff of more th than 40. Tourists ar are welcome — the fee fees they pay for a glim glimpse of the area help keep the centre going. Crees also offers escorted b breaks which begin in Cusco — so you can tag on Machu Picchu.
Andy, an ecologist, arrived as part of his PhD studies in 2011.
‘The rainforest is incredible,’ he says as we stride onward, spider monkeys flitting in the branches. The centre offers comfort, rather than luxury — meals taken in a communal dining
room; cosy tourist quarters, beds draped in mosquito nets. I sleep, lulled by the burble of insects. It is a greater level of sophistication than I’d expected during my long trip into the jungle. It is an odd sensation to leave Cusco and go not north-west to Machu Picchu, but north-east into the unknown.
The highway rolls through Pi sac, where In ca ruins complement Peru’ s main attraction, and agricultural terraces are cut into hillsides. The road rears, too. At one point, it hits 13,123 ft, and each lungful is an effort. It is a relief to dip into Paucartambo, a pretty shard of colonial Spain, at 9,534 ft.
Then the descent really begins into Amazonia. Mist shrouds every curve and the vegetation thickens. By the time I arrive at Cock Of The Rock Lodge — 12 rustic bungalows on the Kosnipata River — I have dropped 6,561 ft in 20 miles. At dawn, the bird in question is gaudily awake, its plumage a bright red-orange amid the green.
The final miles to the MLC complete the transition from mountain to forest — the town of Pillcopata looking like a location from an Indiana Jones movie with a low boat waiting on the Madre de Dios.
While the MLC soon feels like home, I do not have a chance to put down roots. The river ebbs north- east, and modernity recedes. There are Amerindian families on the banks as currents tug the boat. At Limonal, a snake darts through the grass.
I hope to see a jaguar at the next stop, Romero Lodge. Andy lowers my expectations.
‘We probably won’t see them. They may see us,’ he says — but a feline pawprint in the trail is a thrill nonetheless.
TheRe are other joys too — a dusky titi monkey with a baby held to her chest and orinoco geese. Back at the lodge, there are pisco sours with dinner — and tired dreams in small beds. There will be one more halt before the Madre de Dios spits me back into urban life in the busy mining town of Puerto Mal- donado. After a week of travel, Manu Wildlife Centre, with its gaggle of people, feels like a holiday resort. But the jungle still sings. Nearby, Camungo Oxbow Lake is a haven of motion — a pair of hoatzins eyeing me from on high; otters in the shallows.
From an observation platform in a kapok tree, a chlorophyll ocean ebbs to each corner of the horizon. Only the howl of a logger’s chainsaw, carried on the wind, is a reminder of the battle in hand.