Manu cultural zone

Manu cultural zone is much larger than the reserved zone. The reserved zone is pristine virgin rainforrest with very controlled levels of eco-tourism and scientific research permitted. In the cultural zone and wider range of activities can be conducted and land is owned by others besides the State of Peru. Our days required longer times on the boat as going upstream takes considerably longer than our first day which was mostly downstream. We did see a Capybura on the river banks though. We stayed in a lovely cabin near the local airfield and did some wonderful spotting of frogs, spiders and other insects in their lush garden area.

The next day we stayed at Pantiacolla lodge, the family home of Darwin our guide whose family still owns the lodge. Bernard wasn't too impressed at an unexpected guest in our bedroom – a tarantula the size of his hand (Bernard would argue it was the size of your head). The young caretaker of the property was lovely and kindly removed the spider from its spot high on the roof beams, barefoot and all.

Pantiacolla lodge had some wonderful trails – it is a part of the jungle that is the border of the tropical and sub-tropical zones of species and animals. Here we saw the very smelly Peccary (like a warthog but without the big teeth), had to fight our way through bamboo trails complete with machete, and saw leaf-cutter ants moving vast amounts of debris to their desired destination. Anther highlight was seeing the Harpee Eagle. Darwin was terribly excited when he saw the bird in his binocs – he hadn't seen this Eagle for at least five years. We had had a brilliant morning watching Saddleback Tamarin monkeys and various species of birds, and as we were in the process of doing so everything around us began to sound distressed. We knew something significant was happening. We saw this large bird land in a tree nearby and moments later everything else around us disappeared. Moments later, the eagle soared off into the distance in search of prey – an impressive sight to behold. Harpee eagles are the most fearsome preditor in the jungle – they reguarly eat sloths, large monkeys, and other birds and mammals.

After our final trek near Pantiacolla we took the route back to the cloud forest. We stayed another night in the cloud forrest, went for our final walk and then took the long road back to Cusco. This time the roads were much drier and I was able to enjoy the trip back. At the top cloud forest we were amused to find that the road we had built a week ago was still holding on strong and that the only possible landslide disruption was cleared just moments before our approach.