Call of the Wild
Nature-loving travelers are making an impact by collaborating with scientists in the field. On a visit to the Peruvian rain forest, John Wray collects tiger moths by moonlight, dodges fruit bats and giant beetles, and studies the world’s most beautiful birds—all while enjoying the comforts of a simple but stylish lodge. I WA S ST UC K I N T HE M UD W H EN T HE W ILD PIGS A RRIVE D.
It wasn’t just any mud: it was Amazonian mud, in one of the wildest stretches of rain forest a boat can safely reach. I had come to the Tambopata National Reserve, more than a thousand protected square miles in southeastern Peru, on a visit organized by Rainforest Expeditions, a tour operator that owns and manages lodges where travelers can experience the biodiversity of the region while assisting 20
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the scientists working there. I was looking at a band-tailed manakin, a bird the size of a teacup and the color of sunset, putting on a show for a prospective mate. It crossed my mind, as I watched the manakin displaying its plumage, that I’d never seen anything more beautiful. Then I caught the scent of the pigs. The day before, I had traveled by plane from Lima to the rain-forest city of Puerto Maldonado, where I was met by Silverio Duri, my guide. On the four-hour boat ride from Infierno, an indigenous settlement, to the Tambopata Research Center, the lodge where I would be spending the next two nights, Silverio had cautioned me about the pigs—white-lipped peccaries, to be exact. “They’re generally harmless,” he told me, “but don’t get in the way of a herd. Their tusks are sharp as razors.” “Razors,” I repeated, trying to sound casual. “Okay.” “If they surround you, bonk them on the nose.” This tip should have made an impression on me. I quickly forgot it, however, dining on chicken in coca sauce and sipping passion-fruit nectar on my first night at TRC’s newly expanded ecotourism accommodations. The spectacular macaws for which this region is famous distracted me as well, to say nothing of the half-dozen species of monkey whose howls echoed through the forest. Though great care has been taken in the design of the center’s thatch-roofed suites, which have tropical wood floors and décor by indigenous artists, visitors come for the wildlife, and the management
P HI L TO RRES
Macaws in the Tambopata National Reserve, an area of protected rain forest in Peru.
THE E XPERIENCE