Cusco and Manu National Park

While we have been very lucky and happy to be traveling around South America, seeing and experiencing all of these wonderful places, it had been getting a bit repetetive so we decided to look into some volunteering opportunities to change things up a bit.  We remembered a recommendation for volunteering from Ben and Kerryn (whom we spoke with in El Chalten, Argentina) in Manu National Park.  The head offices for the volunteering firm are in Cusco so we headed there from Puno.  The bus journey was incredible, traveling in a valley surrounded by Andean peaks almost the entire way.  As we got closer to Cusco more and more corn was growing - I wondered if it looked the same as it did during the Inca period.  We stayed in a hostel recommended to us in Puno and were not dissapointed - very nice place.  And we certainly weren´t dissapointed with Cusco.  What a gorgeous city.  The hostel has a view of the Plaza de Armas from its balconies.  I had no idea really what to expect from Cusco but it certainly has a european feel with all the cathedrals and monestaries around.  There is still some evidence of the incredible Incan engineering despite all of their buildings being destroyed by the Spanish - the foundations of many have been left because the Spanish recognized how superior they were.  In the taxi on the way to the hostel from the bus station the driver was pointing out the differences - ¨the Inca stuff looks better¨ I said, to which he replied ¨Claro!¨.  We toured some of the local sites including Saqsaywayman (i.e. ´sexy woman´), Quenko and remnants of the old Incan road to the north.  We also met with a friend of a friend for lunch and will most likely have dinner with them again before we go.  Most people stay in Cusco to see the city and organize their trips to Macchu Pichu and the sacred valley.  We on the other hand looked into volunteering in Manu National Park with a group called Atalaya.  They offer two volunteering opportunities - one reforesting and one with kids - and we signed up for 11 days of reforestation work.  We´re back in Cusco now and plan on visiting the Incan sites in the next week.

Manu National Park is thought to be the most biodiverse place on the planet by many.  One of the books we read said that in a 5km square area there are more plants than in all of the UK.  It is also home to several tribes that have little if any contact at all with the outside.  Apparently if you go looking you´ll be shown the way back to civilization with the end of an arrow.  However, many of the native trees have been cut down and bamboo and other invasive species have taken over.  The Atalaya project at Chonkachari is an effort to re-introduce native species into the area.  They´ve also begun an animal rescue project and have two young howler monkeys in camp - one missing a finger (Paula) and the other missing an eye (Chico).  We were picked up at 4:30am, brought to a local bus and sent off to the place in the jungle.  We had previously asked if the bus ride was dangerous or mountainous - ¨not really¨ was the answer.  BULLCRAP!  I think we´ve found the new ´world´s most dangerous road´.  Imagine winding your way up narrow mountain valley roads so fast that a car becomes a tiny bug in about 60 seconds.  Apparently the drops are some 1000ft.  It just got worse and worse.  After a while the paved road turns to dirt, then it narrows, then gets super muddy and the last hour of the 7 hour ride is in clouds.  The bus is literally inches from the rock wall at points, and the tires are barely on the road.  It was terrifying.  Apparently a mini van had gone over just a couple of days before we went.  But we made it - we being about 50 passengers, including two Americans (Karam and Leah).  At one point Karam said ¨this is something you´d 4 wheel down at home, not drive a bus¨.  We were warmly greated by Arpi (from Hungary - he´d been there since January), Marc and Lauren (from England), Jen (from Vancouver) and Alex (from Australia) and shown to our bunks - in an open air dormitory with mosquito nets - given the mandatory snake speach (¨if it gets you, you´re done for¨) and told what our general day would be like.  Essentially it boiled down to this - wake up at 7:30, have breakfast and then for the morning undertake a task that has been assigned by the head staff or volunteer.  Then have lunch and do what you like for the afternoon, including swimming, playing with the monkeys, going for walks or just reading and playing cards.  I picked up War and Peace, you know, light reading.  We did all sorts of things including hacking down bamboo and other plants with a machete for reforestation (machete work is fun!), planting saplings, making and placing signs, clearing the gardens where the saplings were being grown, monitoring animals (saw some capuchin monkeys one day and heard a wild pig another), cataloging insects (we went with Ana, a spanish biologist, on a butterfly hunt and caught and released 14, 5 of which we couldn´t identify - new species?), planting medicinal plants and playing with the monkeys. It was great work and a really healthy lifestyle for ten days.  The showers were cold and there was no electricity. It was really nice to be told about the forest and also told what to do for a while.  We ate simple but healthy vegetarian meals and didn´t have a sip to drink for the duration.  Another major project was clearing a trail up the mountain to the other side where the forest is pristine.  This had been going on for weeks, making about 500m every time ´up´ to allow Peruvian biologists to explore - apparently two new species of orchid had aready been identified.  I did my part cutting this trail and it was amazing both because of how hard it was (I wrung the sweat out of my T shirt at the top, also drained sweat out of my rubber boot - this before even swinging a machete) and the thought that we (on this day we were Mike, Arpi and Karam) might have been the first humans to ever see this place.  We came close to the top, but not quite.  We worked so long that we had to come down in the dark using our headlamps.  That was a pretty eerie experience. 

We lucked out for our return journey because instead of taking the bus (which on the return goes at NIGHT!) we got a ride with a tourist van during the day.  Still very scary, but not nearly as bad as the original ride.

I hope to keep in touch with some of these great people we met and wish the entire project well.  We´ll celebrate Lauren´s birthday with Marc in a couple of days.  Hopefully some of the trees we planted will one day grow to be enormous old growth trees that will allow all sorts of animals to thrive.  We really liked our volunteering experience and will probably look for more in Ecuador.

Cusco´s Plaza de Armas, from our balcony where we eat breakfast.

The fortress of Saqsaywayman - protected Cusco from attack.

Incan masonry.  No gaps and no filler - incredible accuracy.

Elise on the old Incan road to the north of Cusco.

Arpi and Karam on the way ´up´.

The view from where we started cutting that day.

Hacking through the dense jungle.

Upon our return.  Look at my shirt!

Elise in her bed, under a mosquito net.  It was nice sleeping outside.

The common area where we ate meals and read or played cards.

Elise next to the Rio Alto de Madre de Dios.  We went there to watch birds and saw some but high in the trees.

One of the butterflies we catalogued with Ana.

Marc, Lauren and Ana at dinner time.

The waterfall where we could bathe.  Only with biodegradable soap.

The view just before sunset of the lodge.

Us with Gloria our cook, who wanted us to call her ´mama´.

Paula, lying down, was quick and will be reintroduced in the future.  Chico, who was adorable but a pest at meal times, will never be let into the wild.

Our dorms.