Saturday 10 October:

Original Itinerary: Matchigenga Lodge to Blanquillo Lodge. An early departure to cruise down the Alto Madre de Dios River past Boca Manu town, a wonderful seven hour voyage to the private Blanquillo Reserve. At sunset we shall take a short walk to the Blanquillo oxbow lake to look for caimans. Accommodation in Blanquillo Lodge.

The itinerary received a bit of change to adjust for the changes yesterday.  After we had the traditional early start (to maximise the chances of seeing a jaguar - which we didn't) we headed off in the boat for a walk to another cocha where we might see more otters.  On the way in we stopped for a traditional group shot against the trunk - or more accurately buttress roots - of a large tree.  As we were a tad too late we didn't see any otters, but we did see the lake stirred up where they had been.  There was a rather tall tower which gave a look over the lake, but it was suggested that people went up a few at a time as a safety measure.  I passed, mainly because there were rumours of birds a little further down the track (with my cowardice being a secondary, but significant, factor).

A few birds were bold enough to appear which was good.  However the greatest excitement for me was the appearance of a large troop of monkeys which wandered through the trees all around us.  Definitely one of my memorable monkey moments.  To the left is my only worthwhile (?? you be the judge) photograph of a monkey - in this case a Brown Capuchin - from this trip.

After the monkeys left it started to rain, which was a bit of an issue since no-one had their raincoats with them.  One of the good things about forests is that the trees cover  over 90% of the sky so not much rain leaked through.  As we got back to the boats, wondering about several hours in a boat thrashing into the rain, the precipitation stopped! Hooray!!

Heading off again we soon stopped for great views of a large (4m?) Black Cayman on a more or less submerged sandbar.  It was noted that it was suffering from a munched back leg.   As it was in the main Manu River rather than a cocha it would seem that it lost the appendage in a battle with another caiman rather than being monstered by some Giant Otters.

On getting back to the ranger station Ribellino and Janice got off to complete the formalities while I did so to acquire one of the carved bugs.  Unfortunately they weren't for sale - the message about "these  goods are for sale" referred to the t-shirts on which they usually sat and not the bugs themselves. Bug..ger.

Back in to the boat and downstream to the junction with the Madre de Dios, where we turned left for a short distance before swinging in to the town of Boca Manu  (ie the Mouth of the Manu) where we were due to have lunch and to go and inspect a boat building yard.  Lunch was taken at a cafe   -which I think provided the soft drinks (but also made a fair bit of cash from selling t-shirts with nice wildlife designs).  The banner sign was quite common throughout Madre de Dios Province (where we now were) and refers to a political party rather than a full fledged separatist movement as first suspected.

The town looked a bit run down in many ways but also seemed to have some life  as shown by a nice sign for a bar across a bare paddock.  it was commented that quite a bit of money comes in to the town but not much of it is invested here.

One of the ways money comes in is through the boat building industry, based upon the hardwood which floats down the Manu River when it it in spate.  I've put a set of images of boat-building in a separate page. The first image is of some sub-contractors towing a dug out base to the creek near the boat-builders house.  The rest show the gradual erection (?) of the craft.  Apparently it takes about a month to build a boat which then sells, painted to your choice of colours for USD2,000.  As the wood is free - they pay about USD50 a year to the co-op which runs the deal - this is a nice little earner.  The boats last about 4 years and, on being asked, it appeared ours was brand new.

Things appeared in shops here which are not really common in Canberra.  A chook might be a possibility perhaps, at least in the outer suburbs, but a baby deer?

As well as boat building there seems to be a lumber industry here and we passed several of the small local craft shepherding rafts of squared-off timber down the river.  They were heading to the small town of Colorado, which we would reach in a couple of days.  However, rather than having a day in a lodge these guys would chug all the time (but hopefully stopping at night).  This led to some debate about how long the travel from our next Lodge to Puerto Maldonado would take.  One opinion - supported by one guidebook -was that it would take 8 hours for us to get to Colorado, giving us a full 12 hours of travelling.  I suspect this timetable was based on the local boats Ribellino said it would be about 2 hours to Colorado and then about 5 hours in buses and cars.  {Not to spoil the rest of the blog, but he was about right.}

We were going to go past Ribellino's father's lodge and there was a hope that we'd be able to call in to visit.  This was duly done with aims of seeing the father and checking out some additional hummingbirds that are found there.  This also afforded a look into the way land is allocated.  It seems that a form of homesteading is the rule: take some unoccupied land and do something with it (in this case plant a garden) and you will be given title to it.  Thus the father had title to a block with 500m of river frontage and Ribellino had the next 500m.  In theory the land went back another 500m but in practise, and the absence of fences and neighbours, it was a very indefinite boundary.

At the Lodge we were amused by the antics of two domesticated Blue and Yellow Macaws which had been acquired from somewhere.  They seemed able to fly quite well but just hung around: parrots are not stupid and know where food is readily available.  A small fruit was passed around and we were invited to guess what it was.  I don't think anyone got it right, even - at least in my case - after a taste.  It was cocoa/chocolate.

We then trekked off to the garden, which turned out to be a bit more of an expedition than had been expected.  this gave us good views of a few birds including 1 hummer.  No feeders here but lots of nectar rich red flowers.  A fully wild Blue and Yellow Macaw perched in a tree which was a nice sight (he said, with unusual understatement).

The trek resumed going back through some plantation area towards the river.  At this point a number of pineapples were picked but they were never identified in Mandrakes offerings.  Perhaps they were to feed the boatmen on their way home?

We were only a few minutes from the next lodge and headed off smartly, with the trip interrupted by spotting a Jabiru - the official version, not the Australian bird, which is accurately known as a Black-necked Stork - wading in the water.  As we did a turn to get a better look we discovered that there was a small flock of them behind a sandbar.

Onwards to Blanquillo Lodge which we arrived at just before dark.  The place looked very pleasant - way up market compared to the previous two places.  An unusual feature was the lack of anything (eg glass or netting) in the windows.  Since  there were mosquito nets on the beds, wide eaves to keep the rain out, and cold is not a problem in this area that is quite a sensible approach.

The Itinerary as adjusted was fully satisfied.