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A Trip to the Manu Biosphere Part III

I find it somewhat amusing that I meant to write a single post on my trip to Manu, but I am currently on my third one and I’m not sure if I’ll finish up in this post. From yesterday’s post, we were just departing from the Cock-of-the-Rock lodge and descending from the cloud forests to the jungle basin. Someday, if I come back with a private guide, I would like to spend more time at that lodge. It was very nicely equipped – with only the Manu Wildlife Center being better, and the wildlife in that area is quite different from that in the lowlands. Early that day we stopped at the last metropolis we would see for some time – this being the biggest town for miles there.

Finally, we ditched the bus and got onto our motorized canoe, which we used for the rest of the trip.

Some people have asked me what we did for food on the trip. Actually, the food was quite good and we did not go out and grab the ‘critter of the day’. In addition to our guide, we took along a cook, pots and pans, and the food for the trip. At each lodge the cook would prepare the meal while we were out and about. We also took a driver for the boat as the river could get quite low and you really need to have someone who knows the river. The boat doesn’t look that big, but it stored quite a lot. Once while we stopped at a patch of grass for a restroom we found one of the local spiders.

This one was actually holding an egg sac underneath it and despite its appearance was not aggressive nor dangerous. Our drive pointed this out to us.

Although I do not fear spiders, I did not volunteer to do this. Neither did anyone else in our group. Our guide later mentioned to us that, though the spider was not aggressive, this wasn’t really a smart move. Spiders are quite common in Manu and you can find all types there. However, none are considered dangerous to man. We found quite a few of these spiders around our cabins wherever we went.

One night my roommate and I found a rather large spider in our shower. It crawled up towards the ceiling and we decided that it shouldn’t stop us from each taking a shower. However, that night we made sure to lock the door to the bathroom in case it decided to go exploring at night.

More annoying were the tiny spiders that would build webs across the trails. Our guide was quite short and I am rather tall (6′5″) so I kept running into the webs. It was really quite annoying – especially when I got webs in my mouth. None of the spiders were dangerous though and I was not bitten.

Many people who have never been to the rain forest think that spiders and snakes are the things to fear. This is very far from the truth. During the entire trip I only saw two snakes – a dead false coral snake that I discussed in yesterday’s post and a rather large brown snake that I was told was nonpoisonous. There are two snakes in Manu that are feared – the Bushmaster and the Fer-de-lance. Of the two, the fer-de-lance is the more aggressive but the Bushmaster is the more poisonous. Both are quite rare to come across. As for spiders, as I already mentioned they are not dangerous – even the large ones.

What are to be feared though are the ants. For those who live in the south, think fire ants but much nastier. Army ants are common there and can be quite painful if they bite – which luckily did not happen to me or anyone in our group. For this reason it is highly advisable to wear long pants in the jungle and tuck them in to your boots. When we saw army ants we would walk quickly through them, making sure to not step on any, and then shake ourselves off when we stopped seeing them.

Far more feared than the army ants is the bullet ant – considered by some to have the most painful sting of any insect in the world. These ants are about an inch long and are more solitary – you generally see one at a time. However where you see one there are often more. These ants were quite common there and we ran across them often. We did not mess with them and they did not bother us.

In terms of photography in Manu, there are three types of places where you can get photos.

1. From the canoe when going through the river and on rafts on the oxbow lakes. Here you really need a good telephoto, which I didn’t have. On a full frame camera, I plan to return some day with a 600mm telephoto and extenders. A number of animals, particularly birds and monkeys, can be found high in the trees and require a good range. Still, this is the best way to get pictures as it is relatively light out and you can get a lot of interesting animals. For a number of animals, such as capybara and giant otters, this is the only way to get photos.
2. In the jungle canopy. To be honest, the only types of shots I would bother to try for here are macro shots. While I did see a number of mammals and lizards in the jungle – such as agoutis, peccaries, and even a jaguar, they tend not to stick around for very long and you are very unlikely to have time to get a shot off. Some birds can only be found under the canopy – such as a number of manakin species, but again it is quite tough. Insects, on the other hand, are in ample supply and are much more rewarding for the time.
3. From blinds waiting for particular animals. We visited three blinds in Manu.
   1. The Cock-of-the-Rock lodge, which I mentioned yesterday
   2. The macaw clay lick – impressive for watching hundreds of macaws and thousands of green parrots congregate
   3. A tapir blind – it is actually quite rare to see a tapir, but we managed to get lucky and see one

Here’s another other poor shot I managed to get of a critter in Manu.

For those a bit challenged with their out of focus mammals, this is a capybara. Image stabilization would have been my friend there.

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Tags: adventure, jungle, manu, peru, photography, snake, spider, Travel