Trip Report
NATURALIST TOUR MANU NATIONAL PARK - PERU
September 16, 2024
Peru has, together with Colombia, a leading position in numbers of bird species. The variety of environments that exist thanks to the Andes Mountain range are also home to many species of mammals, reptiles, insects and fish. During our last tour in August to Manu National Park (12 days) we saw nine different species of monkeys and other interesting animals like a Common Dwarf Brocket, Giant otters, Emerald Tree Boa and a Lowland Tapir. In this trip report we will share the fantastic encounters that we had with the endlessly fascinating Peruvian wildlife and even with an isolated indigenous tribe.
Our tour started in Cusco, from where we departed early in the morning in a private van in the direction of Manu National Park. We made a stop at the archeological site of Ninamarca. Around 30 chullpas or pre-Inca funerary towers are dramatically situated here on top of a mountain at about 3,000 meters above sea level.
After our visit to Ninamarca with impressive views of the surrounding valley, we continued our way. The 6-hour drive took us over high Andean plateaus with potato fields surrounded by snow-capped mountain tops, through local towns with colorfully dressed people, to the entrance of the park at the Acjanaco pass (3560 meters above sea level). Here starts the “Manu Road” that winds its way through Puna grasslands and Elfin Forest and continues down the slopes of the Andes mountains through the Cloud Forest, to end in the Amazon lowlands at 150 meters above sea level. The 190 km (120 mi) long road follows the borders of the park and forms the only link between its high-and lowlands. It was recently paved with asphalt, which makes the drive a lot more comfortable than in the past years when it was still a dirt road.
Manu National Park is a 1,716,295.22-ha UNESCO park with diverse ecosystems that are home to an unprecedented variety of animals, plant species, butterflies, orchids, and more than 1000 species of birds. The extraordinary biodiversity, its large size and great conservation state make Manu National Park a place of global importance. Beside the many bird species there are more than 200 species of mammals. The Amazon Forest area of the park is home to the long-isolated Mashco-Piro people. Manu is divided into three zones: the “core zone” which is only accessible for scientists and researchers, the “reserved zone” which is only accessible for a limited number of tour operators and their tours and the “cultural zone” which is openly accessible and where local people live in small villages. Due to its difficult access, the park is still nearly roadless, it has been spared from most modern human impact. It is a beautiful and pristine place that could make one think of the “Garden of Eden”.
After a short stop at the entrance for our registration in the park’s logbook, we continued our way down along the Manu Road through the misty Elfin Forest that gradually turned into Cloud Forest. Steve spotted a brown mammal with the size of a medium dog, running in at the side of the road. It ran quite a while in front of our car giving us the time to have a good look at it before it jumped and disappeared in the dense Cloud Forest vegetation. It was a Common (Peruvian) Dwarf Brocket, a small deer with a height of approx. 38 cm. This little-studied species is native to the Andean highlands in western Bolivia and Elfin and Cloud Forest of southeastern Peru, its status considered “Vulnerable” by IUCN. Brockets live a seclusive life and are not often seen, so it was one of our lucky moments.
In the Manu Magic Birds Garden along the Manu Road, we had a tasty picknick lunch that we brought from Cusco, and we had our first close views of hummingbirds that were visiting the feeders. Especially the cute White-bellied Woodstar caught our eyes because it is hardly bigger than a bumblebee and also sounds like one!
We had heard that in a tree close to the garden, an Andean Potoo was sighted. Thanks to the keen eye of our driver Omar, we had a glimpse of this strange bird. The Andean Potoo is a nocturnal bird that, during the day, perches motionless on a tree trunk. It is almost invisible with its cryptically colored feather coat and its large eyes and bill closed. It is hard to describe what the bird looks like, other than that it looks exactly like the trunk that it is perched on. Hence its appearance, it is difficult to spot and despite its vast Andean habitat region from Venezuela to Bolivia, the Andean Potoo is known to live in just a few places. This was another lucky encounter for us!
We stayed one night at the charming Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge, named after Peru’s national bird: the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock. The lodge is beautifully located nearby a river at 1600 meters above sea level and surrounded by evergreen trees covered with mosses, lichens, and bromeliads, typical for the Cloud Forest. We enjoyed watching the many hummingbirds that visit the feeders in the garden next to the dining area, as well as a family of Large-headed Capuchin monkeys that comes for bananas frequently. We also saw a Tayra with its long, slender body and dark brown coat lurking around in the garden. This omnivorous animal is part of the weasel family and native to the Americas.
The forests of Manu are also a paradise for those interested in moths. They are home to an innumerous amount of moth species, many of them still to be discovered by science. At night, moths are attracted by the light of the dining room and gather outside on the mosquito screens of the windows where they can be admired, one even more beautiful than the other. We counted 31 different moth species around the dining room in just one night!
Close to the lodge we visited the lek of the colorful Andean Cock-of-the-Rock. This chunky and funny birds are a delight to watch during their loud hop and bob displays in the trees to attract females.
On our way to the garden of Don Victor, we spotted an adult Humboldt’s (Common) Woolly Monkey (Lagothrix lagothricha lugens ssp.) male in the trees close to the side of the road. What a treat it was to observe this large primate quietly plucking and eating ripe blackberry-like fruits so close to us. This monkey species is found in Cloud and Amazon Forests of Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil where its thick short gray-brown coat protects it from the sun, rain, and insect bites. The long prehensile tail with a thick pad on the end helps to grip branches, be balanced and is strong enough to support all the considerable body weight. Woolly Monkeys live in groups and spend most of their time high in the tree canopy.
In the beautiful garden of Don Victor located along the Manu Road, we saw different species of hummingbirds as well as colorful tanagers that were visiting the (fruit) feeders like Spotted Tanager, Golden-naped Tanager and Saffron-crowned Tanager. Tanagers, belonging to the big scientific family Thraupidae, are a true feast for our eyes. These brightly colored fruit-eating birds are restricted to the Western Hemisphere and mainly to the tropics. About 60% of the tanagers live in South America, and 30% of these species live in the Andes. Most species are endemic to a relatively small area.
When we left the garden, Don Victor spotted a nice male Golden-olive Woodpecker with its red cap carving out a nest in a tree close to the road. Between the hacking, it took several moments catch its breath and panted with open bill. “It’s hard work to build a nest if you are a woodpecker! Especially when your lady comes to check with a critical eye”, was our silly comment when we saw the female appear.
In the following days, continuing our adventure further down the Manu Road the temperatures started to rise, and the vegetation slowly started to turn into humid and dense rainforest. Close to the town of Pillcopata (550 meters above sea level), capital of the Kosñipata district, we stayed a couple of nights at the lodge of the Manu Biological Station located close to the Alto Madre de Dios River. This research station, owned by NGO Conservación Amazónica – ACCA, is considered a biodiversity hotspot within the buffer zone of Manu National Park and is home to a big variety of species of butterflies, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. The charming wooden cabins are facing the small lake and allow us to be surrounded by the day and night sounds of the jungle.
We explored the different trails around the lodge and the small lake, where we saw, among many other birds, Dusky-headed Parakeets, Razor-billed Currasow, and waterbirds like Limpkin, Sunbittern and the spectacular Hoatzin. This tropical bird lives in swamps, riparian forests, and mangroves of the Amazon and the Orinoco basins in South America. It has the bill of a chicken, the proportions of a pheasant, and a scruffy crest. The young chicks are competent swimmers, and if they fall from the nest, they are quite capable of climbing back up, because they possess two functional claws on the digits of each wing, which disappear as the wing develops. The Hoatzin also is unique in possessing a digestive system capable of fermentation and the effective breaking-down of plant matter in a rumen-like crop. This process takes time, so Hoatzins spend much of the day almost motionless, leaning on branches and emitting manure-like smells that have led to their local name, “stink-birds.”
The feeders close to the dining area of the lodge are visited by two species of Macaws (Blue-and-yellow and Red-and-green) and the Blue-throated Piping Guan, that we could admire at close range with a nice morning coffee in our hands.
In a bamboo bush close to the cabins lives a family of small Black-headed Night Monkeys that we visited during their diurnal sleep. They were packed together between the branches, but we could still see their little faces with white eyebrows and big eyes, adapted for their nightly feeding activities in search of leaves, flowers, moths, beetles and spiders.
At night we went owling around the lodge and found two species of owls: Tropical Screech-Owl and Black-banded Owl. The small Tropical Screech-Owl looked down at us from a tree branch with big yellow eyes and raised eyebrows, so it seemed. This species is the most common and widespread, as well is one of the most successful and adaptable species of screech-owl in South America, but little is known about its natural history. We heard a Black-banded Owl persistently hooting, but it took us a while to detect it high upon a tree. This striking owl has a yellow bill, dark eyes and characteristic narrow and wavy white and black bars on its chest. The species is found across a large area of South America but appears to be scarce throughout entire range. As we laid in bed later that night, the owls continued their hooting, pleasantly accompanying us to the realms of dreams.
During our days at the Manu Biological Station, we also we visited 2 different gardens of local families located at the other side of the Alto Madre de Dios River. In the garden Pico de Hoz, named after the spectacular Buff-tailed Sicklebill hummingbird, we had the pleasure of observing different species of hummingbirds and even feel their tiny little feet holding on to our fingers as they came drinking from the sugar water jars that we were holding. Toppin’s Titi monkeys with thick and fluffy reddish-brown furs came to the feeder for a daily banana snack, as well as energetic and noisy Black-capped Squirrel Monkeys. The latter monkey species lives in large, mostly female-dominated troops of around 40 to 75 monkeys. Their diet is omnivorous and mostly consists of flowers, fruit, leaves, nuts, seeds, insects, arachnids, eggs and small vertebrates.
In the Inkamazonia garden located a few kilometers further down the road, we saw a beautiful adult Emerald Tree Boa at eye level curled around the branches of a small tree. This nonvenomous snake kills its prey (birds and small rodents) by wrapping several constricting coils hastily around it, preventing it from breathing. Adults grow to about 1.8 m (6 feet) in length and they are found in the rainforests of South America. In the shade of the wooden roofed construction with chairs, we saw different species of hummingbirds like the tiny Rufous-crested Coquette. A White-throated Toucan that was rescued by the owner of Inkamazonia, still pays regular visits to the garden, which gave us the opportunity to marvel at this beautiful bird with its impressive large bill. It was this bill that inspired scientists to give this bird the name: Ramphastos tucanus. Ramphastos meaning “snouted bill” in old Greek and tucanus, derived from the indigenous Guarani language, can be translated as “bonenose”. The yelping calls of the White-throated Toucan are one of the most characteristic sounds of humid lowland amazon forest and can carry for a long distance. White-throated Toucans forage in the forest canopy for fruit, large arthropods, and small vertebrates (such as lizards, and the nestlings and eggs of smaller birds).
On our way back to the Manu Biological Station lodge, we searched for a Great Potoo that was seen sleeping in a tree close to the road. And we found it, with very good views! This impressive animal is the bigger cousin of the Andean Potoo that we saw some days earlier.
Now it was time for the Madre de Dios River and reserve zone part of our Manu adventure! Our driver Omar brought us to the small port town Atalaya, located at the Alto Madre de Dios River. Here we met our cook Llasmin and our boat driver Julian with his boat assistent. Because of the remoteness of the 3 lodges where we would be staying the next days, we had to bring all the food, drinking water, gas to cook etc. After embarking everything into the long boat with roof and open sides, we embarked as well and off we went. Due to the dry season, the water of the river was low and at some places very low, making it a challenge to pass certain rapids. More than once the boat scratched its belly over the river stones, but thanks to the good skills of our boat drivers, we never got stuck for long!
The (Alto) Madre de Dios River is a tributary of the Madeiras River, which flows into the right bank of the Amazon River in Brazilian territory. The Madre de Dios River has a total length of 1.150 km, of which 356 km in Manu National Park. It is an important waterway for the department of Madre de Dios, particularly Puerto Maldonado, the largest town in the area, and the capital of the department. Mango farming and gold mining are among the many industries on its banks. Other important industries along the river are logging and farming, both of which cause serious environmental problems. Along the length of the river, there are several national parks and reserves, one of them being Manu National Park.
We had a picknick lunch on big tree that was lying on a riverbank and after 6 hours we arrived at the Hummingbird Lodge, where we would spend one night in the basic wooden cabins in the middle of the forest. Llasmin turned out to be a fantastic cook and served us a delicious meal, the first of many delicious meals that we would be eating during the next days. She even managed to bake a beautiful cake with the little means she had for a birthday girl in our group!
The next morning, we left the lodge early because we had another long day by boat ahead. Our first Bolivian Red Howler monkeys were eating clay on a steep cliff at the riverside. This species is one of the largest of the monkeys in Latin America, where they live in Bolivia and Southern Peru. Their diet consists of leaves, which allows them to sleep for 15 hours per day, as there is an abundance of leaves in the tropical forest. The clay helps them to digest the leaves. Howler monkeys have one of the loudest calls of any terrestrial mammal and can be heard up to 1.2 miles (2 km) away. Scientists assume that their calls are used to inform other howler monkeys of the groups’ locations. Male Red Howlers wake up early in the morning and awake the forest with their loud howls. And us as well, for that matter! They howl again at night, before going to sleep. The sound can be quite scary if you don’t know that it is coming from this beautiful orange-brown monkey! We heard the Howlers several times in the morning and at dusk during the next days.
Another nice sighting from the boat was a Lowland (Brazilian) Tapir during its morning walk along the river. Even though tapirs are the largest land mammals in South America, known as “gardeners of the forest” for their habit of eating (and dispersing) large quantities of fruit and seeds, little is known about these solitary, mostly nocturnal creatures. One of the most distinctive features of the tapir is its proboscis, or snout, which gives it a funny appearance. The snout is highly flexible and used to grab food such as leaves, berries and fruit. Tapirs love to spend time in the water, and they are even known to fall asleep while submerged. The tapir we know today is believed to have appeared between 5 and 25 million years ago, which makes it a “the living fossil.”
In the afternoon, we left the river Alto Madre de Dios and started to follow the river Madre de Dios. We made an obligatory stop at the Limonal Park Ranger Post, which functions as access, registration and control for the reserve zone of the Manu National Park. A ranger explained us about the reserve zone rules and that there were recent sightings and even confrontations with the uncontacted Mashco-Piro people. The Mashco-Piro, or Nomole as they call themselves, are an indigenous tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers who inhabit the remote regions of the Amazon rainforest of Manu National Park. They have actively avoided contact with non-native peoples and are considered one of the last isolated peoples on Earth. In 2024 their number was believed to be above 750. The Mashcos recently attacked a ranger post further down the river with bows and arrows, as well as a lodging camp. We were instructed that, if we might see them from the boat, we must ignore them and keep on going. Both for our safety and for theirs, as they are assumably very vulnerable to diseases that could be brought in by us outsiders. The reason for the recent sightings of the Mashcos could be that they come to collect turtle eggs at the riverbanks at this time of the year. Turtles lay their eggs during the peak of the dry season (August and September). Another reason may be that they are driven from their territories by (illegal) logging.
After the instructions and registration at the post, we continued our way by boat to our next lodge. We kept an eye out for every living creature that we might encounter, the jaguar the highest on the groups wish-list (and the Mashcos, against better judgement, on mine..).
Many Yellow-spotted Amazon River Turtles were resting on fallen trees in the water where they were stapled on each other, a funny sight! The Yellow-spotted Amazon River Turtle is one of the largest South American river turtles. They can grow up to 45 cm long and weigh up to 8 kg. Females can be up to twice the size of males. Yellow spots on the side of its head give this species its common name. These spots are most prominent in juveniles and fade with age. They feed on fruits, seeds, weeds, aquatic plants, fish, and small invertebrates. The females lay two clutches of eggs each year, each with four to 35 eggs in it. They make their nests in sandy areas on the banks of rivers at the peak of dry season so the nests will not be washed away with the floods of the rainy season.
Other animals we had the pleasure to see from the boat were Black and White Caimans napping on the sandy riverbanks, a Capybara couple lounging in shallow water and a variety of (migrant) birds along the river and its banks like Orinoco Geese, Wood Storks, Yellow-billed and Large-billed Terns, Pied Plovers, Spotted Sandpipers and spectacular Black Skimmers. These last birds have an eccentric, brightly orange-red colored bill, with the lower mandible extending beyond the upper part of the bill (maxilla). Skimmers fly low over the water with the bill open and the lower mandible slicing the surface. When the mandible touches a fish, the upper bill snaps down instantly to catch it. It is spectacular to see these birds fish!
We arrived at our lodge Casa Matsiguenka in the late afternoon. This lodge is founded by the indigenous Matsiguenka community and a German NGO in the 1990s. The mission of the project is conservation of the area and preservation of the Matsiguenka culture. The eco-lodge is an initiative to involve the Matsiguenka community in ecotourism and to generate an income for them. The Matsiguenka population was estimated around 18,000 people in in 2020. They live in the high jungle, or montaña, area on the eastern slopes of the Andes and in the Amazon Basin jungle regions of southeastern Peru. Formerly they were hunter-gatherers but today the majority are sedentary and practice Slash-and-burn agriculture. The main crops that they grow, are manioc, maize, and bananas, coffee and cacao are increasingly important. Their main source of protein used to be peccary and monkey meat but today fish has become more important as game animals have become increasingly scarce.
After settling in the beautiful cabins with palm leave-roofs and a delicious dinner from Llasmin, we set out for a night walk along the trails around the lodge, accompanied by a nightly concert of many different insects and other jungle creatures. We found different species of grasshoppers and spiders, heard a Crested Owl and saw a very cute Eastern Lowland (Allen’s) Olingo in a tree above us. This carnivorous mammal is the cousin of the Raccoon, although it looks very different with its short round face, large eyes and short round ears.
The next morning, we woke up by the sound of a male Red Howler. During the following days, we saw 2 more species of monkeys close to our cabins: Black Spider Monkey and Shock-headed Capuchin. The Black Spider Monkeys were carrying tiny babies high up in the trees. This species has very long limbs and a long prehensile tail that make them one of the largest monkeys in South America. They live in groups in the upper layers of the rainforest and forage in the high canopy, where they eat fruits, and occasionally leaves, flowers, and insects. Spider monkeys are under threat because they are widely hunted by local people and their habitat is being destructed for logging and land clearing.
We visited Cocha Salvador close to our lodge to look for a family of Giant Otters that is living there. A cocha, or Oxbow Lake is a type of U-shaped lake that is formed when a wide meander of a river is cut off. We embarked on a small catamaran and glided over the smooth water surface with only the sound of the paddles (our boat driver and his assistant paddled) and an occasional bird call. It was warm and the otters were nowhere to be found. We did see several interesting birds like the beautiful Agami Heron, Sunbittern, Anhinga, Amazon Kingfisher and a couple Muscovy Ducks. We wanted to call it a day when suddenly the heads of 5 Giant Otters appeared above the water surface. Luck was nevertheless at our side! The Giant Otter is a fantastic South American mammal. It is the longest member of the weasel family that can reach up to 1.8 m. The main diet is fish, but it may also eat crabs, turtles, snakes and small caimans. Due to its size, the Giant Otter has no serious natural predators other than humans. There are records of fierce Giant Otter families attacking and even killing an adult Black Caiman that came to close… For our imagination: Black Caimans can have a maximum length of around 5 to 6 m (16 to 20 ft) and weigh over 450 kg!
Manu Birding Lodge was the last stop of this naturalist tour in the Manu National Park. We reached the lodge after another long day by boat on the Madre de Dios River, which we all enjoyed a lot. As we lay in our beds later that night, we listened to the nice calls of the Common Pauraque and the Ocellated Poorwill, both nightbirds.
The fruit feeder at the lodge is one of the few places visited by Weddell’s Saddle-back Tamarins. This small monkey with its expressive gray-white eyebrows, nose and mouth is a delight to watch while it munches on bananas.
The next morning, we had breakfast at a 36 m high canopy tower where we witnessed the sunrise over the treetops. We saw Red Howlers warming up in the morning sun and canopy bird species such as different caciques (Yellow-rumped, Red-rumped and Casqued Cacique), Ivory-billed Aracari and parrots (Blue-headed and White-bellied Parrot). On our walk back through the forest to the lodge, Steve’s eye caught a striking green and black striped Ameerega trivittata, commonly known as a Three-striped Poison Frogbetween dead leaves on the ground. We also found a Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth curled up and sleeping in a tree. This slow-moving animal sleeps 15 to 18 hours a day and is active for only brief periods of time, which may be during either the day or night.
A short boat ride took us from the lodge to the Blanquillo Macaws Clay Lick. A clay lick or “collpa” is a clay wall where some species birds and mammals go eat clay that helps them to neutralize the toxins in their digestive system caused by eating certain (unripe) berries, fruits and leaves. It was a beautiful to see the many Red-and-green Macaws and Blue-headed Parrots clinching to the wall to dine from the clay.
We visited another Oxbow Lake, Cocha Blanco, that we explored in the golden light of the setting sun. A beautiful medium sized Black Caiman followed our catamaran closely, waiting patiently for a possible snack that people apparently sometimes give. We didn’t and the caiman finally disappeared in the dark water of the cocha. We saw different species of aquatic birds like the long-legged Wattled Jacana, Limpkin, and the Horned Screamer, named after the spine on its head like a unicorn of the avian world. A large group of Black-capped Squirrel Monkeys were jumping the branches close to the water surface, before getting settled for the night. We enjoyed our last delicious Llasmin-diner together at the lodge. The following day we made our long way back by boat to civilization, our bewildering Manu adventure was over. From the port town of Colorado, we had a transfer by car to the airport of Puerto Maldonado where we reluctantly said goodbye to our great travel companions and the vast Amazon Forest.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a glimpse of America’s biggest cat: the Jaguar. We did see fresh jaguar tracks on the river sandbank though, when we made a sanitary stop. So maybe we were watched by this majestic animal with our pants down…
Would you like to come with us on our 12-days Naturalist Tour to enjoy the fantastic nature and wildlife that Manu National Park has to offer?
Written by Eva Wu – Photos: Steve Sanchez & Eva Wu
References:
A field guide to the Larger Mammals of South America, Richard Webb and Jeff Blincow, Princeton University Press, 2024
Kuntur Nature and Adventure EIRL
Company Address: Av. Industrial Conj. Hab. FOVIPOL. Nr 104 – Santiago – Cusco – Peru
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