TRAVEL IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE DUNCAN MADDEN is entranced by the astonishing wildlife of Peru’s Manu Rainforest – and is humbled by the fact that its survival is in our hands PHOTOGRAPH by Frans Lemmens/Alamy

096 squaremile.com ➤ 097 ASSETS Morning dawns grey and wet as our ragtag Morning dawns grey The final ascent along the Kosnipata Road The Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge takes its wake, predators the sun rises and the Before As morning dawns, the show comes to diversity is almost unparalleled. Manu’s locals busying themselves with preparations with preparations locals busying themselves – women in rainbow for an unnamed festival pollera skirts and bright colours with layers of shawls about their llicllas, the woven cloth a sleeping toddler shoulders that often conceal hat monteras sit on top on their backs. Bowler of jaunty angles. of every head in a riot for the minibus piles into the Crees group first port of call, the day-long drive to our Lodge wonderfully named Cock-of-the-Rock of the Manu Biosphere high in the cloudforests take our time, of course, heading Reserve. We chug along the the drizzle as we through through Valley, of the Sacred winding roads ravines wet with rain that has run off from and over a mountains the surrounding we find ancient wall where pass 4,100-metre paintings and a lone farmer tilling the land. is steep and entrance to the cloudforest us with incomparable perilous, but rewards summit over an impossibly the views from to the horizon and dense jungle that stretches beyond. Quinn picks out the tiniest trail in the trundling along it. distance, and soon we’re And after national . Peru’s name from a comfy night in my own private cabin (a expecting), we’re luxury I definitely wasn’t up in the dawn murk to see whether we can and ethereal catch a glimpse of these bizarre Our destination is a ramshackle creatures. if away where, a 30-minute tramp treehouse we’ll see the lek – a collection of lucky, we’re males engaging in competitive displays with the aim of enticing visiting females. putting on are a dozen male cock-of-the-rocks a show on dripping branches amid a tangled with red, mass of ferns and mosses. Fire white eyes, they bulbous heads and piercing branch to branch as a troupe hop madly from afar, females watch, aloof, from of plain brown deciding which has earned their courtship. pair off and the lek is over for a close. to camp, our drift slowly back We another day. investigate the strange first chance to properly us. around and abundant environment call it home than 1,000 bird More – blurs (twice as many as the whole of Europe) of colour flitting between branches too fast a likeable for my eyes to see. I walk with Andy, Foundation’s northerner who heads the Crees and conservation activities while research undertaking his PhD. Mesmerised by tropical seven years since a trip to Tanzania rainforests ago, he lived in the depths of before a tourism that’s a tourism that’s

It’s raining hard. Drains have turned to raining hard. It’s That paradise, the Manu Rainforest, is That paradise, the Manu Rainforest, It’s a worthy ambition, and one Quinn a worthy ambition, It’s The question of sustainable tourism has The question of sustainable We’re standing in the thick of the Manu standing in the We’re sustainable and educational as well as fun sustainable and educational Ronnie, barely and exciting,” my guide T’S ABOUT PRACTISING fountains and streets to rivers, hampering our fountains and streets Incan ruins exploration of the extraordinary by an earthquake in 1950. revealed that were take shelter in the cathedral and watch We Peru’s largest national park. It’s a vast, diverse a vast, diverse national park. It’s largest Peru’s and abundant that stretches the chilly heights of the 15,328km sq from Andean foothills to the steamy depths of the Amazon jungle. Exploring Manu is the purpose of my first visit to Peru – but for now, sermons on its unrivalled and despite Quinn’s holding are surroundings my current beauty, in the cobbled streets my attention as I stroll ancient Andean capital of Cusco. discusses with subtle but convincing urgency. discusses with subtle but convincing urgency. He talks of the devastating slash and burn Peru like a through spreading agriculture soil in plague, leaving unmanageable, barren its wake. He speaks of the students, volunteers, the around and scientists from researchers to work and live in world who have gathered Manu Biosphere camp deep in the the Crees Reserve – a ramshackle global family with a single collective goal – and of his ambition to world as educator the message to the spread of paradise. of his little slice and guardian been playing on my mind ever since I landed been playing on my mind the in Cusco and met up with Quinn Meyer, Crees charismatic founder of the not-for-profit New Foundation. A Brit who decamped from now divides his time between in 2003 and York of London jungles the urban and tropical to conduct and Manu, Quinn set up Crees ecology and help local into rainforest research communities practise sustainable agriculture. Biosphere Reserve, deep in eastern Peru, Biosphere murky light to the straining to peer through and the pack of overhead canopy 25 metres contentedly there. titi monkeys resting brown audible over the incessant hum of a million audible over the incessant in silent agreement, mosquitoes, says. I nod that means. wondering exactly what The final ascent to the cloudforest is steep, but rewards us with incomparable views I “

LEAF IT OUT: The white-lined leaf frog is one of the many vibrant residents of Manu National Park that the Crees Foundation is fighting hard to protect squaremile.com

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NATURAL WONDER: NATURAL (Clockwise from top) Macaws provide a riot of colour against a backdrop of rock and leaves; a whip looms out of the darkness; the brown river cuts through the green of the forest; a cock-of-the-rock flutters onto a nearby branch ➤ com . We continue chatting as we pile back into We the recent Swollen and raging from A cluster of beautiful open-air thatched volunteers rigging Crees stumble upon We That night, Andy carries on the been properly that hasn’t “Old research in the ink black night and to the Later, Manu, and his knowledge of the jungleManu, and his knowledge around us is profound. He us is profound. around identifies birds their calls – highland motmots, silver- from hummingbirds beaked tanagers, many-spotted points out bromeliads, – describes different in sparks an interest alien-looking insects and I never knew I had. the intricacies of nature the famous through the minibus for our descent are the roads where cocaine town of Patria, leaves left in thelined with mounds of cocoa on the to the rickety dock at Atalya sun to dry, de Dios River. banks of the Madre our riverboat bounces deluges, the Madre ride as we in a rollercoaster downstream pass a series We and other debris. dodge trees theof lodges that have crashed into the river as with residents way, below them gave ground lost it’s scrabbling to save what they can before and Willy, Yelsin depths. to the angry brown our sibling pilots, show deft touch though, and soon we pull up safe and dry(ish) to an almost unnoticeable gap in the dense river bush. the Manu Learning Centre. arrived at We’ve huts sensitively set in a small clearing on the the learning forest, edge of prime regenerative Foundation is the jewel in the Crees centre research. and the hub of its scientific crown and then After lunch, we tour the bio garden of in search deeper into the jungle venture monkeys, giant anteaters, deadly fer-de-lance and the rumour of a . and erecting camera traps high in the trees with some new nets, and huddle safe bird arrivals in a viewing cabin over a wetland as the heavens open once more. conversation I started with Quinn in Cusco. primary research He describes Crees’ purpose – to establish the value of conserving rather than secondary forest regenerative focusing on older primary forest. as quantified describes secondary forest supporting only 30% of wildlife species in closer shows it’s research Manu, but Crees’ to 90%,” he explains. As he talks, another boxes and brings in several large researcher the camp. around unveils some catches from boa snaps at A huge and angry emerald tree us, while Andy demonstrates what a snake bite looks like by letting another harmless specimen clamp down on his forearm. chorus, we don sound of a deafening frog wellies and head back into the saturated pick out deadly caterpillars, jungle. Torches squaremile ➤ ASSETS

PHOTOGRAPHS (top three) by Tom Mason; (river) Amazon-Images / Alamy PHOTOGRAPHS (monkey) Tom Mason; (Romero) Adrian Gallop com

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ASSETS squaremile MONKEY BUSINESS: The monkey trail offers the chance to see some of more than 30 species of monkey that can be found living in Peru, including titis, which often gather in packs high up in the canopy; (below left) the Manu Learning Romero Centre’s Rainforest Lodge exodus.co.uk At the airport, I wait to say goodbye to With the Crees Foundation watching over Foundation watching over the Crees With back to Ronnie’s dictum of sustainable and back to Ronnie’s educative tourism, and I begin to understand what he means. For Ronnie, born locally in the Puerto Maldonado, guiding us through about making money loves isn’t he rainforests the jungle magic rub off on about letting – it’s his guests, opening our eyes to its precarious aliens in this astonishing We’re future. still somehow in but we’re environment, a powerful persuader. It’s of its future. control Quinn, Andy and Ronnie, and find that I am different guys from in awe at these three worlds – all of them younger than me – who so dedicated to the mission of making a are in their chosen corner of the world. difference only the jungle that has left it isn’t I realise its mark on me, but also these jungle ambassadors, these self-appointed guardians. Reserve has a fighting it, the Manu Biosphere new chance – and, in me, it has an ardent But it could always use more. supporter. Duncan travelled to Peru with Exodus, which has a Discovery trip supporting the 12-day Amazon Wildlife Crees Foundation in the Manu Biosphere Reserve. This includes return flights from London, most meals, and the services of a professional local guide, from £3,299 per person. Includes stays at The Cock-of-the-Rock lodge, Manu Learning Centre, Romero Rainforest Centre. Next departing Lodge and Manu Wildlife book, 20 August and 24 September 2014. To 23 July, call Exodus on 0845 863 9601 or visit Over a final pisco sour, my mind wanders Over a final pisco sour, “She was raised here as an orphan and “She was raised here Manu has one last treat in store for us that in store Manu has one last treat Our last day brings us out of the depths lives wild in the surrounding areas but loves areas lives wild in the surrounding time to time,” from to come back for treats Ronnie explains. Indeed, she seems so tame trying the staff are not long before that it’s for a to stop her getting into the restaurant banquet, eventually tempting her away proper with a trail of bananas and apples. night. As we’re gathered in the candlelight gathered night. As we’re to toast the jungle with Centre at the Wildlife bottomless pisco sours, Ronnie bursts in to has come to say that Vanessa tell us, excitedly, hello. I wander out expecting to meet another Foundation, only to be member of the Crees in the Revelling tapir. by a large confronted gobbles the fruit that we attention, Vanessa happy to let us rub her nose and pat offer her, haunches. her meaty and scarred to Manu Wildlife Centre, a sprawling jungle Centre, to Manu Wildlife as close to bound complex of cabins that’s civilisation as we’ve seen since Cusco. We in take a silent float over a nearby oxbow lake but instead spy a of giant river otters search a cecropia lazily from sloth hanging three-toed comically from hoatzins lumber as prehistoric branch to branch, their strange dimensions making flight seem impossible until, finally, their perches. from they rise ponderously their own throaty roars, making them sound roars, their own throaty something like chainsaws in the distance.

The morning sees us back on the river, The morning sees us back on the river, Quinn teaches us how to chew cocoa orb spiders, a moustached jungle frog orb spiders, a moustached jungle frog ➤ that oozes toxic white foam and, back at the that oozes toxic white foam and, back at the wetland, the silvery eyes of a smooth-fronted the waters. cayman as it drifts silently across Sleep comes surprisingly easily that night, blinking in the dark. of eyes although I dream heading to our deepest jungle point – the Lodge on the Romero around pristine forests Dios. The river de a tributary of the Madre richly entertained kept ride is long, but we’re by the spectacular wildlife shows all around. macaws flap and green Blue and gold and red fish in the snowy egrets overhead, and screech shallows, and all the while we keep watchful eyes out for a glimpse of that elusive jaguar. leaves, and we stop for a dip in a natural thermal pool with numb tongues. Explorations tangled take us even further into Manu’s here with families of greeted depths, and we’re towering spider monkeys swinging through calls with to Andy’s responding ironwoods, 100 We’re aliens here, but We’re we’re still somehow in it’s control of its future; a powerful persuader