Tuesday 6 October:

Itinerary: San Pedro to Atalaya. Continue descending through forest and farmland to the river port of Atalaya, where we board our large, covered, motorised canoes and head down the Alto Madre de Dios River to our riverside lodge. The canoes give excellent opportunities for watching wildlife, including numerous birds and monkeys; Red Howlers, Dusky Titis, Capuchins and Squirrel Monkeys are all present here. (Whenever we are on the river there will be two canoes, travelling close together, with a guide in each.) Accommodation in Amaru Mayu rainforest lodge.

 The discombobulation of yesterday was resolved today as we got up before dawn to go to a platform overloking the lek site.  We were cautioned to be very quiet as we approached the platform to avoid scaring off the birds.  The reason the Lodge doesn't have a generator is because the Government fears that the noise of such a device will scare off the birds.

To say the least it was a brilliant time looking down n these bizarre birds displaying and competing with each other.  The flashlight kid was there,but had by now stopped whinging about his torch - probably means he found it in his cabin.  Interestingly the imagery of the birds focuses very much on the orange head, prominent eye and weird headpiece.  What struck me, and I believe several others of the team, was the black and grey patterning on the wings.  This gave a really strange effect, especially when the birds were in flight.  Here is a link to wikipedia.

After this we walked on up the road to see what birds were around.  After about 500m we came across an exposed cliff face with a fair amount of surrounding vegetation.  My notes suggest that I added 14 life-birds to my list at this spot, and I am fairly sure I didn't get some of the birds.  There were tanagers of many species and various other genera.  An astonishing spot - Janice commented that she had never seen it working that well, so I am just pleased it was that day.  After an hour or so we left and wandered back down for breakfast.

After breakfast I was excited to find some Tropical Kingbirds perched in a tree in the grounds.  It was explained politely that these would be common on the rivers.  This is an understatement!!  There was also occasional excitement as hummingbirds of various species attended the many feeders hung outside the lounge/dining area. 

We began our journey this day on foot, walking about 300m down the road to the next lodge who allowed us on the grounds to look at their hummingbird feeders, which duly delivered several species.  At some point in this we wandered over a picturesque bridge (unpopulated by trolls as far as I could tell).   We were told the story from the previous year of a member of a large tour group (about 20 folk) who came down there one evening trying to catch butterflies.  {On reflection, one wonders what the nerk was doing catching wildlife in this area - OK it isn't a National Park but as part of a biosphere reserve ...  He was probably a relative of the flashlight kid.} It seems that the powers that be also objected to his activities, because his group noticed he wasn't around at breakfast the next morning.  His body was found in the river, about 10m below the road.

Back on the bus for a further2 hours.  This was interupted by spotting 'a raptor' above the trees.  This turned out to be a kettle of Swallow-tailed Kites soaring above, and perching on, the canopy.  I have spent quite a lot of time in the Southern US and Mexico looking for these birds so to see them like this was really nice.

An interesting aspect of this part of the drive was the way the driver angled across the many watercourse going across the road on bends: the reason for this was clear when thedrain was a bit deeper than usual - the tail of the bus would hit the ground with a very loud graunch.  Afetr such events the driver would hop out to inspect the back of the bus and at one point returned with a chunk of fibreglass in his hand.{It wasn't clear if that was to facilitate later repairs or just some form of evidence.}  The road was being worked on at this point, including both redoing the surface with modern machinery and hacking back the jungle with both machetes and more advanced equipment.  Juan said that the workers stay in these camps for 3 weeks and then go back to town (probably Cusco) for a couple of weeks.  Another entry on the list of jobs that others are welcome to have.

Soon after this we came out of the forest into farmland.  The first village we came to was said to specialise in butterfly trapping for the souvenir trade.  My memory is that it used to be a forestry settlement but all the desirable trees have been taken.

We didn't stop there, but did so at a coca plantation on the outskirts of the settlement.  This was part of the 20,000 Ha of legal coca rather than the 80,000 Ha of illegal (perhaps extra-legal is a better term?) plantation.  We had considerable information from Rivellino - whose background is in this area - about how the crop is harvested and how cocaine is made.  It seems that there are few, if any, crops which can compete with the returns from the drug trade, and that some of those in the agencies which should be controlling the crop were in cahoots with the dealers (eg flights shipping out drugs were permitted to land at a military airstrip for a fee of USD12k - presumably not charged to an  American Express Card).  It was suggested that any large new cars or big motorbikes were an indicator that the driver of the vehicle was in some way part of the drug trade.

Butterflies were everywhere at this stop (as they continued to be throughout the rest of the trip). At some point a really big one landed on my arm to suck up sweat and I was astonished to actually be able to feel its proboscis tapping my skin.  Juan commented that the insects seem to be attracted to animal excretory products, and on the river a mass of butterflies faraway from a human settlement might mean that a Jaguar had piddled there.

We moved right along to a riverside town (Kosnipata) for lunch.  The meal was taken at tables in a small cafe and the drinks (Inka Cola - looks as though it has already been drunk, but tastes quite nice - and similar beverages) were purchased from the cafe but the food came out of Mandrake's magic box.  We didn't realise the town was riverside until a Large-billed Tern was seen flying down the main street.  The town looked pretty much like frontier towns anywhere, although the park in the middle of the main square added a few more species to the trip including our first macaw as a pair of Chestnut-fronted Macaws perched in a tree.  As well as the birds we saw a bit of life - and death, as a funeral procession came by - in the town which was interesting as always.  There was a fair movement of kids to and from school as lunchtime is when the morning shift ends and the afternoon lot take up their duties.

We crossed over the river on a large bridge and rumbled off on the last stretch of the road.  The first truck we encountered was very much 'local traffic': not only were its tyres down to the canvas but it was being driven very slowly, possibly to keep pace with the owner's dog running alongside!  It managed to overtake us as we stopped to peer at a bird in the foliage.  For the first time we encountered a truck being driven by a prat: a convoy of three gravel trucks appeared at high speed and got the brakes thoroughly locked up.  They stopped in time, fortunately, and the crossing was made.  A few km later they appeared behind us with much horn blowing requesting that they overtake.  It seems that being psychotic is a worldwide prerequisite for employment in this occupation.

After a pause at a lookout out over the lowlands and the 'port' we got down to the river and onto our boat with its nice blue roof.  Rather than us travel in two boats all the people went into one boat and the luggage (plus Mandrake's magical eskies) went into the other.  This first leg was only 10 minutes, but the river was fairly ripping along so I - as a very poor swimmer - was pleased to see that life jackets were provided.

The lodge for this night was Amazonas Lodge and was about a 10 minute walk from the river.  Whelbarrows were available for the staff to schlep the luggage up to the lodge.  The amount of hummingbird activity was astonishing with much of it associated with the flowering bushes as well as the many feeders.  Electricity was available but the banos were communal!

After settling in some of us went for a stroll to a nearby lagoon where we added about 5 species to the list.  A highlight was the first Hoatzin of the trip.  I was really excited, since I thought they were so exotic looking they much be rare: in fact they are bog-common.  But still interesting and good to look at.   Evening meal was then taken before a walk back to the lagoon to try to spot caiman.  This was achieved, with a very small specimen found right against the bank: mum's eyeshine was also seen on the far side.  We also saw a few frogs as shown to the left.

An excellent day.