Day 48 - into Manu proper.

Up at 5.40am. Tim shares his coca leaves over breakfast. We get scrambled eggs with the remnants of last night’s salsa. People are wondering if we’ll be getting a big breakfast every day. Sarah: “Porridge is the best breakfast. In Nepal we had sherpa’s porridge; first they toast the oats. Did we have tea with rancid yak’s butter? Yes, and it wasn’t as bad as you’d think.”

By 7.30am it’s already hot. The road is considerably muddier, criss-crossed with little streams running from above. And this is the dry season. Clench my buttocks when we pass within inches of the edge of a particularly precarious drop. Butterflies the size of bats abound – turquoise, yellow, red and black. Roger is mesmerised; he studies butterflies for a living.

Pass through the settlement of Chantachaca – a cluster of shacks made of wooden boards, topped with tin roofs. Chickens wander in and out. There’s a sheet by the side of the road with coca leaves drying on it. “They used to work in timber here, but now most of the timber has been cut down, so they work on the plantations and they grow a lot of coca here; it’s a natural plant that grows here. Each family is allowed one hectare for the cultivation of coca. They sell about 60% on the black market because they get double, triple for it, and that goes towards the production of cocaine.” On pretty much every hut it says ‘Somos Peru’ inside a heart, and the heart is crossed out; there’s another name scrawled next to it.

Nicolas: “’Somos Peru’ was a small political party but the leader died last year. Small parties don’t last long; the leader dies and pfft.”

We pass a cemetery – just a bunch of crosses in the grass under a large tree – the only large tree left in the area. “The local people believe that the spirits of the dead people live in that tree, that’s why they won’t cut it down.”


Patria, another scattering of shacks, was also built on coca money. Finally we make it to Pilcopata – the capital of these parts – with a large, overgrown plaza, wide dirt streets and a more permanent air to it – some of the houses are actually made of brick and cement. Another tire needs to be replaced, so we wander off to have a look at the rickety bridge overgrown with vines which hangs over the river next to the new one.

I’m lured into a shack advertising fruit juice. Some locals are eating ceviche which is being marinated in the plastic tubs covered with cloth on the table outside. They ignore me. Something spicy is cooking on the little gas stove; it smells delicious but there’s no time. The fresh papaya juice is great, though.

Tim buys a large bag of coca leaves for five soles (£1). We agree to go halves. Coca leaf tea has become my new morning drink and I will try chewing the leaves also, once I find the mineral that you’re supposed to stow under your cheek to activate the active ingredients.

An old woman holds out her hand. I have no change and feel bad. Nicolás gives her some bread and she kisses it and looks skywards, giving thanks for it.

Finally, the road comes to the village of Atalaya, on the bank of the Alto Madre de Diós river. Some small schoolchildren are buying what looks like Mr Freeze – flavoured ice sticks. We sit on the bank of the river while the boat captain and his assistant loads boxes of food and our luggage onto the boat. It’s a longtail, a lot like the ones in Thailand, with an awning to keep out the sun/torrential rain. There are plastic bottle lying along the quayside, and that was the case along the road; the reserve is not quite pristine. I expect that getting rid of trash is a big problem and it’s lucky that so few people come here.

A woman is selling a bow and arrows, decorated with the feathers of local birds. Her family makes them, though people in Atalaya tend to hunt with guns rather than bows. She offers a plastic tube, just in case I want to take it on the airplane. Maybe on the way back…

We pile into the boat; I nab a front row seat next to Nicolás. Once we’re speeding past the banks, overgrown with entwined trees, there’s a good breeze. Unlike the Patagonian rivers, which are clear and blue and deep, Madre de Diós is muddy and wide, and in some places we have to slow right down because it’s so shallow. We zigzag across the river, going past vast stony otmeli, sometimes passing the triangular blue tents of the Piro fishermen from the Diamante community (only native tribes are allowed to hunt and fish in the reserve), waving at the labourers loading great bunches of green bananas into their boats, and spotting various birds – egrets, herons, vultures, kingfishers, macaws, parakeets, storks…The most impressive is the king vulture – black and white with a beautifully coloured red and orange head – it has a poor sense of smell, so it just follows all the other vultures to find dinner.

Halfway to today’s destination, we stop at the Pantiacolla Lodge for lunch – a Peruvian salad: boiled veggies with chicken, and some sweet potato. Our itinerary says that we are supposed to have ‘singing and dancing by the Harumbut people who’ll tell us their magical stories of the rainforest’, but that’s not to be.

We’d have been soaked in several brief rainstorms if it wasn’t for sheets of blue plastic which we use to cover ourselves. It’s exhilarating – hurtling through the rain on the river.

By sunset, we have reached our destination: Yine lodge, a collection of rustic huts run by the Yine people. This is the remotest place I’ve ever been. We have three hours of electricity in the dining hut, we have travelled 120km by river to get here, and the only way out is either back the way we came or via tiny, weather-dependent airplane which takes off in the grassy field behind the lodge. In the jungle beyond, there are still some uncontacted tribes, hostile to outsiders; Nicolás has been shot at with bow and arrow before.

Highlight of the day? Unexpected wildlife sighting. Nicolás suddenly hisses: “Jaguar!” and we see a large spotted feline form scramble up the bank from the river and into a thicket of vegetation. Then a majestic face peered at us warily through the leaves. Incredible.

Last thing is the night walk, similar to the jungle ‘safari’ that I’d done in Thailand. We walk slowly with our torches, peering at the vegetation around us. Since the moon is full, there’s less activity than normal because creatures are reluctant to come out, lest they make easy prey for something else. We see some giant grasshoppers, asleep on leaves, or going through a metamorphosis and shedding the old skin; some spiders, brightly coloured beetles, a small iguana, and – incredibly – a Night Monkey: the only nocturnal monkey in the world, sightings of which are rarer than that of jaguars. With its puffy orange chest and white goggles, it looks pretty comical as it hops from branch to branch.

I’m lathered with DEET, so I can see the mosquitoes in the torchlight, coming close to my face before backing off, but some enterprising ones manage to bite me through my long-sleeved top. Note to self: next time, wear long-sleeved loose clothing.