Manu Reseved zone

Manu reserved zone was clearly one of the absolute highlights of my travels to date. Nothing can quite prepare you for how it feels to be walking through virgin rainforrest. The smells, the sounds, the sights and the heat/humidity are overwhelming. Early wake-up calls were par for the course, but of course the Howler monkeys did a pretty good job of letting you know at 5.30am that it was time to get up. The first time you hear the howlers it sets your hairs on end – so powerful for so small an animal. Our first walk for the day included visiting an Oxbow lake for some giant otter spotting (they put on an incredible performance for us), seeing different species of monkeys and learning all different types of flora and fauna in the tropical rainforrest. Strangler figs, walking pines and the vines were particularly impressive. We wore welly boots/gumboots as the trails were particularly muddy. Walking in the morning was particuarly lovely, until about 9am when the heat and humidity become noticable. By 11am we were back at camp, stripped down to minimum clothing, resting before our afternoon walk.

The afternoon walk was perhaps the highlight of my trip. We spotted very early on a very healthy group of woolley monkeys. I was the first to have the pleasure of being pelted with fruit pips and other debris by the woolleys. At first Darwin our guide said, “Oh they are just eating” but as hard as we tried to get out of their way, they always let us know who was the dominant species in that territory. Fruit thrown at you from 30m can sting a little, but it was better than them urinating on us – a trait for which woolleys are well known. After being bitten by mosquitos for the 100^th time, we eventually left the woolleys to walk in the late afternoon light. The sun flowed in from the river and lit up the forrest in the most beautiful colours. We marvelled in biodiversity of the jungle, and even had to cross a temporary lake showing just whose welly boots were waterproof and whose weren't. (Mine were, Bernard's weren't). That night we feasted and marvelled at all we had seen.

The next day we visited another Oxbow lake viewing platform, saw an incredibly impressive 500 year old fig, sybiosis of animals and plants (ants and trees in particular) and were amused by the Brown Capuchin monkeys and Bernard's particular highlight, the antics of the Squirrel monkeys. These little charmers peered down at Bernard through palm fronds – peering not once, but twice, in a clear display of curiosity before deciding whether to move on. These same cheeky creatures would jump onto a palm frond, look at me for a few moments, and before I had a chance to take a picture would sprint off to another tree. Each of them did exactly the same thing before moving on. Hilarious. Upon leaving the reserved zone we saw monster size Caimen basking in the sunshine on the riverbanks and number of turtles lined up in a row. I never was quick enough to get my camera out to catch the turtles, something I'm rather disappointed in.