Jungle-Camp and days in cusco

As mentioned, we've done a jungle trip to the reserved zone in the Manu National Park (twice as big as Switzerland). The reserved zone is an area where tourism is possible (~3000 visits a year) but with tight restrictions on what you can do, so don't expect a 5 star hotel but rather a little bungalow (4 walls, 1 roof, 2 beds and 2 mosquito nets).

The full trail can be seen on : Jungle Trail tracker

Day 1: Pick up at the hostel, meeting the other passengers: 2 Kiwi's, 1 American, 1 Dutch and a Dutch/Swedish couple (one didn't feel well) and via Airport (to pick up another passenger) towards the Andean passes... but a landslide stopped us, so we had to go another way to Pisac to cross the Andes. After 6-7 h we arrived at our Lodge in the cloud forest.

Day 2: Get up early 5.30 and bus trip to Atalaya the town where we changed to a boat, followed by an 5 h boat ride to our second lodge. The boat is pretty good to spot animals:
Caimans, birds, birds, birds, red howler monkeys (the one below is a woolen monkey, hold as a pet..) and some Trees.... well, a lot of trees..

The lodges are simple but have showers (cold/not heated) and toilets and little bungalows to sleep in. After the shower and dinner, we had a night walk to spot grasshoppers, frogs, flying and non flying insects, a tarantula and some other animals..

Day 3: one passenger is (still) sick, so the guide had to organize the back transport and we had a late start to move to the Eco-lodge in the Reserved Zone. On the way, we have seen the earth biggest rat (about 50 kg). In the afternoon we did a jungle walk to a lake and we've seen a family of giant otters and another passenger got sick, but we were ok).

Day 4: We all spent a full day in the untouched reserved zone (no one sick anymore) and used a wooden catamaran on lake salvador to watch birds, followed by a jungle trail, and the visit of a platform (25m) to watch birds and the giant otters again (and we've had a Gecko in the platform) and we have seen woolen monkeys :-)
 

Day 5: early start as usual (around 05.30) then downstream out of zona reserva  (3-4 h) to another lake to watch the macaws and other birds: (German speakers: Das sind Blau/Gelbe und Blau/Rote Aras).

Day 6: Very early morning to get to the "macaw clay lick" for 4 hours (a place where parrots go and eat clay), so we have seen a lot of parrots :-) that day! In the afternoon we visited a platform in the canopy on one of the giant trees in the rain forest (btw. we just had 1 little rain during the whole trip).

Day 7+Day 8: back upstream and last night in a jungle lodge with a very nice dinner, followed by a very early start (05.00) to a long journey back to Cusco (Sunday seems to be Coca leaf drying day)... but as said, this is all legal (and therefore, the expensive looking, brand new Jeep XYZ with 4 strange looking guys must have been from government to collect the coca leafs there :-) )
Back in Cusco, we spent a relaxing day with the laundry, sitting around and caring our insect bites we've brought back from the Jungle and we planned the next few days. So we decided to take a little collectivo (a van with 12 seats) to go to Lamay and hike up the hill there (about 700 m) to visit an Inca site. Luckily we had a "former formula 1 pilot" in the driver's seat, so our jurney was just 1h not 1.5 h as planned ;-)
The way up was pretty tough but we managed it and it was worth it since there were hardly no other tourists up there (no road = no tourists) :-) On the way back we used another, slower collectivo (but this means it is full with people :-) )


see the path we took... satelite is bad but terrain is good :-)

Now, our plan is to have one more day in Cusco and head than to Puno for 2 nights before we go and visit the "Earth deepest canyon" (how to measure: take the highest peak of a mountain and compare it with the lowest part in the canyon :-) )