Day 61 - back to Cusco.

Am woken in the middle of the night by a terrific stomach ache – my first in many years. Can’t sleep and don’t have any painkillers. Oh lawdy, why can’t it be diarrhoea instead? In the morning, I get my wish; I have a case of jungle belly. Nothing that won’t clear up in 24 hours, but it does help to make up my mind whether to fly back to Cusco or take the 11-hour scenic bus journey; I’m flying, because I can’t stray too far from the bathroom. Yesterday, a couple of American backpackers, upon seeing me scribble in my notebook, offered to share their experience of local tours and buses from Cusco. They told me that a) Tambopata Hostel does excellent 1-3 days tours to lake Sandoval and around and b) that some bus companies lock their on-board toilets and ‘lose’ the key because they don’t want to clean them, which is not what me and my belly needed to hear.

It’s too late to rent a scooter because I’ve slept in, thanks to the mid-night disturbance, so I go for a short stroll instead. On the plaza there seems to be some sort of military parade – soldiers and sailors marching in spotless uniforms before raising the Peruvian flag, crowds of onlookers in their Sunday finery, and little children dressed in patriotic red-and-white, wearing white gloves in spite of the heat. The friaje period seems to be over; we’re back to the normal over-thirties temperature.

Gerson at the hostel explains to me that because Puerto Maldonado borders Brazil and Bolivia, there are ‘military exercises’ every Sunday at 10am. I pump him for information on the tours he does with his team of fellow guides, and wish I had more time so that I could check out both Lake Sandoval and an ayahuasca ceremony.

Take a motorbike taxi to the Terminal Terrestre, the new bus station with buses to various parts of Peru to collect more practical info, and then, since I’ve got time to kill before my flight, I stop off at the Serpentarium, right near the airport.

It’s a pretty depressing place, on par with the crocodile farm in Bangkok. You have several snake tanks with dispirited-looking boa constrictors, and a few other snakes. They’re mostly motionless and lethargic – either lying on the newspaper at the bottom or entwined around artificial tree branches – there’s no attempt to recreate their natural habitat. An anaconda lies motionless in a small tank of water. A few local fish and turtles float in the too-shallow water of small aquariums. The saddest exhibit is the lonely, sad-looking ocelot (spotted forest cat twice the size of a house cat) on a tree in a cage.

“Why is there a cat in a serpentarium?” I ask our guide. “Oh, he was donated to us.” Donated by whom? It puts me in mind of an anti-animal trafficking poster I’ve seen recently, showing a monkey behind bars: “Why am I locked up? What’s my crime?” They should let the ocelot go; I don’t give a flying damn that they don’t have much in the way of attractions besides the snakes. The ‘highlight’ of the visit is having your picture taken with a boa, which feels pleasantly cold against my skin, but who whole thing just reinforces my belief that unless the animals in question are critically endangered and are part of some breeding program, the end goal of which is to release them into the wild, there’s no reason why they should be caged for our ‘entertainment’.

After that disappointment, I stumble across a piece of heaven. I follow the sign to the Anaconda lodge/ Thai restaurant and find myself amidst the lush tropical gardens of a Swiss/Thai-run property. Felix, a guy who works there, shows me around; it comprises a few pristine wooden huts, each housing a plush bed and sparse furniture, with hammocks on each veranda, and hot water and private bathrooms in the plusher huts. The restaurant is one of the very few of its kind in Peru, and the Thai hostess insists on shoes off when entering the building. There’s a small pool in the midst of the greenery; and Felix informs me that they have eight species of monkeys here. “Let’s go find some,” he suggests, and I follow, thinking that maybe we’ll try and spot some, but it turns out that thanks to the bananas growing here, and the owners not minding if the monkeys eat them, the monkeys show no fear and some of them get very close to you.

“Martina! Lucho!” Felix calls, and the white-fronted cappichin and the black spider monkey scramble down the trees, stopping just feet away to look at us. Lucho the spider monkey is amazing to watch; his tail truly is a fifth limb, and he uses it to dangle upside down to stare at me. I hold out my hand and his little monkey fingers grab hold of it and he scrambles onto my shoulder. Then something spooks him and he hops back onto the tree. “Just as well, really,” Felix tells me. “He’s got a habit of putting his arms around your neck and not wanting to let go because he thinks you’re his mum; he can also pee down your back.”

He points out a little monkey with a very impressive white moustache; it’s an emperor tamarin – a very rare monkey that we hoped to see in Manu, but failed. Chaco is one of several tamarins who live here; they are wild, and won’t come too close, but you can see them easily, leaping from tree to tree; they’re the smallest of the lot. So basically, you don’t have to go an expensive expedition into the jungle to see wildlife; you can just pay £10 for a bus ticket from Cusco and stay at the Anaconda Lodge. I’ve found my ‘author pick’ for the area.

Stock up on local brazil nut products before the flight, and check back into the Casa de la Gringa in San Blas. Each room in this hippy place is named after one of the elements. I’m in the ‘wind’ room, and given my currently tempestuous stomach, the irony’s not lost on me.

One of the few places open mid-afternoon on a Sunday is The Muse, Too – a newer branch of the original bar. It’s got a chilled out vibe, cream leather seats and a couple of backpackers collapsed amongst the cushions on the sofa. The fruit juices are huge, the service is friendly and the vegetable lasagna is a delicious and safe choice for today; am steering clear of any meat/fish for 24 hours.

Feel rundown, and am glad in the end to have taken Mike’s advice and flown; I need the afternoon to snooze and recuperate. Lively and productive in the evening, I manage to type up much of my Puerto Maldonado research. Not impressed with my predecessor’s coverage of the place; it really seems like they didn’t actually go there - the text is a condensed version of the old Rough Guide to Peru section and the town they describe could well have been Puerto Maldonado ten years ago. I don’t believe that it has changed beyond recognition in two years. Well, my section is going to be really clear and up-to-date. Not that I’m no longer a rookie, I can tell straight away what’s missing from a description of a place (including my own from two years back) and I do my best to rectify the situation.