Friday 9 October

Itinerary: Manu National Park. We will spend two full memorable days exploring the park in the vicinity of the lodge. Much of it will be in the boats watching birds and looking for the rare and spectacular Giant Otters, nearly two metres long. However we will also walk in the forest for plants, reptiles, yet more birds, and searching for White-bellied Spider Monkeys and the noisy Whitelipped Peccary. Accommodation as for previous night.

A revision had been made to the itinerary such that we only spent the day of the 9th in this lodge.  That was not a problem.

The reference to 'the noisy White-lipped Peccary" in the itinerary calls to mind two other noises that were common here, but which I didn't manage to record.

• The first was what I call the defining sound of the Amazon: the sound of howler monkeys. The linked clip makes the call considerably shorter than we heard which went on like a jet taking off.  Ribellino advised that the sound can be heard for 5km and is made by a single alpha male, using a very pumped up chest cavity as an amplifier.
• The second call came during the night and before awakening.  At the time I thought it was the creaking groan of a very large tree falling, but  it wasn't followed by the expected crash and thud.  Consulting the experts, it turns out to have been a frog.  On this occasion I haven't been able to find a YouTube sample.

We'll get to Peccaries later (an English guest at Amazonas Lodge did report seeing some there, but we didn't so I have only just found a hook to include that observation).

The visit to the Giant Otter lake (an oxbow lake - cocha - off the river) started very early as the otters are most active just after sunrise.  Groups are allowed 2 hours on the boat in the lake, but if you have the first spot you can start early.  It seemed that the system is self regulating: if one group isn't back in time the second will complain to the Park rangers which places the offending guide's license at risk.  In the event we were all up very early for a 10 minute boat trip down the river and then a 15 minute (or thereabouts) walk into the Lake.  It was just about daylight when we arrived there , despite a brief stop en route in the jungle

The stop was when Ribellino found a Poison Dart frog jumping around on the forest floor and held it up for us to see,  The photo isn't very good as I didn't want to get too close with the flash.  He explained that he was now immune to the poison as he had been handling the beasts for 25 years.  A bit later he did comment that his fingers were tingling, as they usually do after he has handled one.  (I'm glad I didn't emulate him when I found one in a similar boggy place on the way back.)

Anyhow, once we get to the lake we find that the boat there is a catamaran made out of two dugout canoes with a platform (and some seats) on top of it.  The boatmen have come along and paddle us around.  A small problem is that the dugouts leak somewhat: thus from time to time one of the guides would have to start bailing: also the clients had to be arranged carefully so that the leak was not too far underwater.  {The next day when we went back through the ranger station they were given a serve by Janice about the state of the boat.}

Well you ask: did we get to see the Giant Otters.  You'd better believe we saw the otters.  Up to 5 of them - at least one more would be guarding the cubs from caiman {see link above}.  They were absolutely huge, especially compared with the Southern River Otters we had seen in the Madre de Dios the previous day.  I can quite believe that  they would tip the tape at 2m, although all we could usually see was their head.  This feature was generally engaged in one of two activities: munching on a fish; or begging, trying to get to munch on a fish caught by another member of the clan.

There were also a heap of birds.  Several Hoatzin (I still like looking at them even though they are bog common), another Sunbittern, Green Ibis , several Wattled Jacana, an Agami Heron and a Limpkin.  As with the Swallow-tailed Kites the last named is a bird I have looked for in quite a few locales with no previous success.  Overall I recorded 11 lifers before breakfast which I regard as way good.  Also 4 species of monkey which is pretty special: we never managed to see one of the alpha-male howlers doing its thing but either they were all round this cocha or someone has built a secret airbase in the vicinity.  We got back just on 9am as required: however we didn't find the second tour group who were expected- perhaps their guide had decided not to bother coming after the otters would have ceased activity.

We then had some free time to do what was needed around the lodge.  This included some washing since:

• there were lots of lines available for drying; and
• the undies were beginning to run low.

I then put in some time birding around the site.  I was using the streetlight approach, as explained in the following parenthesis. {Joe was walking home at midnight when he found his -insert name of vilifiable ethnic group here - friend peering at the ground under a streetlight. "What are doing my friend?" he asked.  "I'm looking for my wallet" came the answer.  "Did you lose it here?" enquired Joe.  "No," said the friend "by that tree, but its too dark to see it over there."}  Thus I looked in the exposed tops of trees and in the fringes of the jungle because I could the birds that were there.  Which was none, but I couldn't spot the little - or even big - sods that were everywhere in the thick vegetation.  I did see looks of butterflies and colourful lizards which was nice.

After lunch we hopped back in the main boat to go a little way downstream for a walk along a track in the jungle.  Around about this point one of the others pointed out a small hole in our boat just on the waterline where a nail had fallen out.  Since mud was generally available I decided to experiment by plugging said hole with mud.  When we left the boat 3 days later the mud was still in place and there had been no leak since!

The walk was quite pleasant through the forest with the group split into 2.  It was unfortunate that no-one had brought along a field guide since we had to work out later what birds we had seen.  There were 4 species  able to be identified by our group (and a different set of 4 - plus one of ours - seen by the other group.  The pale-winged Trumpeters were very good, as they were very large birds and a fair few of them, but my favourite occurred as I rushed (with leader's approval) ahead of the group to get a better look at the trumpeters.  I flushed a bird which went and sat on a branch.  On hooking the bins on to it it was clearly a screech owl, and when Juan consulted his photo he was able to identify it as a Tropical Screech Owl.

On getting back to the Lodge we fond that another grop had arrived.  Their luggage boat was full of metal boxes which made me think they were a film crew.  They were also of the Norte Americano persuasion and seemed to me to be a tad up themselves (possibly Californians).  However others of our group spoke to them and found them OK, so I think Mr Slightly-Grumpy must have just been summoned by me because other people had the temerity to invade "our" lodge.

One unusual thing was that the community had some artefacts for sale.  We had been quietly asked not to buy anything featuring feathers or bones since to do otherwise would encourage the people to keep killing wildlife.  It went without saying that, despite their attraction as a rabbit control mechanism,  no-one would try to get the sets of arrows through Australian Customs (without worrying about what AQIS would have to say about the feathers on the wooden arrows).   About all this left was a few knitted bags of somewhat variable quality.  In the event we passed but other members of the group got bags.