Manu Wildlife Immersion 5 Days

Departure from Cusco in the morning time (pick up from your hotels), the beginning of the Manu Road passes through numerous dry inner-mountain valleys and picturesque villages. This gives you a quick overview of locals’ lifestyles and colorful clothes. A brief call at Ninamarca will give you the possibility to explore the pre-Incas tombs within this well archaeological site. The road includes various stops, so you can enjoy seeing the surrounding landscapes varying from high mountains to humid forests. The next disembark will occur in the village of Paucartambo which features a beautiful arched colonial bridge. From Paucartambo the altitude will keep on increasing and the setting gradually gets enveloped by a cloudy mist. The road leads you to Acjanaco pass consisting of the main gateway to Manu National Park where the environment dramatically changes from dry to wet valleys. Do not miss the splendid view when looking down toward the lowlands! The lush and misty cloud forest surrounded by massive rocks and waterfalls is perhaps the most fragile and threatened type of rainforest. In such an environment filled with lichens and moss-carpeted soil, spotting birds and monkeys will be the main target. You will get the chance to stare at a large variety of birds ranging from the Peruvian national bird, the brightly red Andean Cock-of-the-Rock displays to tanagers, toucans, or quetzals. The path will head down to the Guadalupe lodge (560 m./1837 ft). Overnight in the Lodge.

We depart after having early morning breakfast, along with the driving toward the Diamante native Community (4 hours by car) we can appreciate the view of how we will leave behind the Andean Mountain and getting immersed into the dense rainforest, amazing views of the river flowing towards the horizon and gradually the mountains disappearing and much flatter of evergreen forest covering most of the landscape.

You will be able to observe myriads of colorful birds such as; macaws, parrots, toucans, caciques, oropendolas, this road section it’s the newest transect across mature and pristine rainforest in the lower basin of the Alto Madre de Dios River, this travel route provides good chances to observe some interesting wildlife such as peccaries, monkeys that may wander along the road

 Once at Diamante native community, we embark on a motorboat and navigate down (30 minutes) the crystalline river of Madre de Dios. We will reach the confluence with the Manu River, we stop briefly at the Limonal ranger station for check-in then, we travel upriver we’ll search diligently for any signs of Jaguar, still, only a slim chance but this river is perhaps the best location to find this magnificent mammal, just a few curves up the river the environment will change, there will be orders of magnitude more to look at, from hundred if not thousands of swallows and butterflies, every single sandbar being occupied by something interesting, we will keep a close watch for wildcats. In the mid-afternoon, we pàss by the trailhead of the Otorongo Oxbow Lake, where we will be able to walk inside of pristine and to have an impression of how the forest looks like it by inside, there is a trail network that allows visiting a canopy tower that overlooks the Otorongo lake and few other wooden platforms to observe some aquatic wildlife and alligators. This forest section also harbors one of the largest kapok trees,  visitors can walk nearby its root system to see its enormous size 

We continue navigating some additional 40 minutes to reach the Casa Matsigueka lodge which it´s set aside a short distance from the Rio Manu in the heart of Manu National Park and staying the following nights at this peaceful place with pristine surroundings. * night walk optional and depends of travelers' desires 

We will have the better part of our journey to enjoy the Manu´s Wilderness, on this morning you will explore the Salvador oxbow lake famous for its population of Giant Otters who usually breeds there, they can be seen at different times of the day, this gregarious and playful carnivorous spend a good deal of their time fishing or playing by any side of the lake or just taking a sunbath on their favorite dead logs. We’ll have access to a floating catamaran (two large canoes connected by wooden planks) with chairs set up for bird and wildlife viewing (which makes paddling around the lake easily and comfortably. Apart from looking for the giant river otters, we’ll have the chance for many of the lake edge species, including the fabulous Hoatzin, Agami, and herons, interesting raptors, colorful macaws Oropendolas and caciques, just floating around the lake will be one of the joys of the trip, large predators such as; Black caiman can be seen at the edge of the lake, this tour will take most of the morning time. (Please notice that the time to visit the Salvador lagoon on this day is subject to availability)

During the midday, we walk across a mature forest populated by the large & majestic Brazil nut trees  following the main path we reach the Macaw Clay Lick which is also one of the highlights of the trip, the large and noisy Red and Green Macaws among a few parrot and parakeets gather all together and perch on a cliff and they can be observed eating some piece of clay 

The forest around Salvador Lake and the lodge are some of the best Amazonian rainforests we have seen, and a nice network of trails allows us to leisurely stroll on flat trails the rest of the day. We will also search for more species of monkeys such as white-fronted capuchin, Pygmy Marmoset, Emperor Tamarins, Red Howler monkeys, and the large and charismatic black spider monkeys on the canopy trees. In fact, this is the forest section where visitors will be able to observe a large number of primates. Overnight at casa Matsiguenka, *the night walk is available on this day. 

This morning, the breakfast will be arranged on the boat to optimize our time so we'll board our river transport and begin the journey down the Rio Manu back to the Rio Madre de Dios. This will be another opportunity for catching the sunrise in the amazon rainforest while floating on the motorboat.

This boat journey traversing the rainforest provides chances to observe aquatic birds on the sandbars,  side-necked turtles sunning on the logs,  caymans at the edge of the river, or even glimpses of the magnificent jaguar on the banks of the river.

After about  4 hours of motorboat drive, we will reach the confluence of the Manu and Madre de Dios river to turn the navigation upstream. We will boat up the fast-flowing braided and clear water for a short while.

We reach the Diamante Native Community where our ground transport awaits us and will transport us to the Guadalupe Lodge.

Your morning walk along with our garden to learning about some medicinal plants and tropical fruits and other interesting plantations, we can easily observe many colorful birds flying over, we enjoy our tasty breakfast and get ready to pack as you will soon start hitting the road again to Cusco.

 The way back offers some last impressing views of the exuberant cloud forest.  Do not miss the splendid views while reaching the top of the impressive mountains and the encounter of these two geographical regions.

The arrival in Cusco should be around 4 pm. it would be depending on traffic conditions while driving towards the city center.