Day 51 - back along Manu river to Tambo Blanquillo.

By now, while not exactly becoming indifferent to the wildlife, I no longer shout out the name of every bird we see during our four-hour trip back to Yine Lodge to see Bruno and Cinthia off on their flight. For the first half of the journey, I spot the difference between the herons and egrets: white but small and on its own – snowy egret; with a longer neck – great egret; off-white but the same size as the snowy egret – must be the capped heron; a crowd of little white ones – cattle egrets; a crowd of bigger white ones – storks…

Then I become engrossed in “Icon” by Frederick Forsyth. His spy thrillers are my leisure reading and this one involves a new despotic regime coming to power in Russia. It grips me because it’s close to home; many of the horrors described have happened in Russia and will most likely continue to. I’m due to travel there in late summer and for some reason, travel in Russia frightens me more than, say, travel in Haiti (possibly because I’m more aware of the dangers in the land of my birth).

More exciting are the caimans – we see several, both the huge black ones (in the same spot as last time – it must be a favourite beach) and the littler white ones. Beautiful prehistoric monsters.


Short stop in Boca Manu and we climb out to stretch our legs. It consists of a village square, and a few houses and shops made of wooden planks along the dirt path around it. There are three open-front grocery/miscellaneous shops right next to each other; they sell souvenir t-shirts, noodles, canned tuna, Coca-Cola…One has coin Telefonica payphones which can be used to call the rest of Peru. To my surprise, there’s also a line of computers (some with flat screens, even!), complete with Skype headphones; it seems that internet has reached the jungle, though I bet the connections are slow.

There’s a gaggle of young people gathered around something in the village square. One of the guys is hitting something with a stick, and for a moment I think they’re participating in some kind of sport, but then he uses the tip of the stick to pick up a limp snake body. We all head over. It’s green with black stripes and not very big. There’s blood in its mouth and it’s quite dead. Nicolás identifies it as a bushmaster – one of the three deadly snakes in Manu. “Victor almost died last year,” he tells me. Victor’s the guy who runs the lodge we’d just stayed at; I noticed a big scar on his shin. “He was bitten by a fer-de-lance when he went to the water pump…he held on all night before a boat took him to Boca Manu.” In Boca Manu they keep anti-venom, which is the same for the bushmaster; at the Limonal ranger station they also have the anti-venom.

I feel sorry for this one; all these snakes are shy and won’t attack unless they feel cornered. It was the bushmaster’s bad luck to be on the field in broad daylight. Logically, it makes more sense to be afraid of snakes than of spiders, but I’ve always liked reptiles.

The little plane was originally due to leave at 11.30 but it’s not even there yet. We wait at the ‘airport’ – an open building with a thatched roof and some old-fashioned weighing scales. A poster on the wall tells you to check your gun in, as you can’t take it as hand luggage. Forbidden items include guns, fireworks, chemistry sets…

Other tour groups arrive, including the one containing the hot German scientist who showed me up on the archery range yesterday. Briefly lust after him. He won’t sit still, unlike the fat Americans who are part of his group. I like energetic men. We have time for arroz chaufa (fried rice) for lunch. Then we wait and wait. Finally, there’s word that the plane is on its way and we can leave.

On the way to Tambo Blaquillo, Nicolás gives me tips on buses to Puerto Maldonado and when I ask him about safety on night routes and robberies, he asks me if I’d heard anything about robberies in Manu. I haven’t, but it seems that a Pantiacolla party got robbed a year and a half ago. Some men laid rocks to block the road, stopped the bus and took all the valuables. The police never caught them, but that’s not terribly surprising. They’ve got to be locals, I imagine – from one of the little towns; it’s hard to imagine people travelling from afar to rob some tourists. They forget that people don’t bring much cash to the park.

We stop for a short walk through the jungle to Cocha Blanco – a lovely little oxbow lake. Carlitos and Nicolás row us out. We’re there at sunset, which is when many birds are returning to their nests. One dead, hollow tree is a nesting spot for parrots, while another one is home to no less than five toucans. I watch them go about their bird business using Nicolás’s monocle, and wish I’d bought better binoculars. Some squirrel monkeys are leaping from branch to branch in a nearby tree. At dusk, we glide through the completely still water to the dock for a dark walk to our boat.

Tambo Blanquillo is the best lodge yet. Long path lit by little lanterns on sticks, and we all sleep in one large open house with a thatched roof, our rooms next to each other and open to the outdoors. Luckily, the mosquito nets are brand new. The bathrooms are also in the same building, which is good news for those whose bladders are bursting by 2am after the inevitable soup at dinner.