Peru 2007 With Wanamei in the Rain forest A family trip in November
With Wanamei in the Rain Forest. 7 days in November 2007 Tekst and Foto: Carsten Krog Pedersen
With her eyes closed, she lift her hands in the air; Finally at the river again!
Ahh... The breeze! Freja enjoys the breeze on the river. In the forest the heat is heavy espesially for the children, but anyway - they really love the forest.
Low Clouds in the forest.
We are on a trip with Wanamey in the forest along the river Madre de Dios. In 7 days we are following this beatyfull and kind Harakambut family, who shovs us the forest and help us helples danish people surviving in the rain forest. And they are good specially the girls Gabi and Tasmari are helpfull to the children. We enjoy the children when they are playing – they dont understand each other, but they are playing. The rainforest is so different from Denmark and anyway its so simular. The people – the children – they dont think about differences they think about how they can get simular – were can we meet each other. Adults can learn from that!
Tasmari Anyway - surviving is not a kind of play when you are in the rain forest but whit Mateo as leader and Santiago helping us understand the language, we feel wery safe. Our trip started in Cousco at the 24. of november in a blue Toyota LandCruiser. Santiago - our guide took us safly over the mountains through the dry part and in to the rainy part where the forest starts. Denmark is a country with no big mountains, so we were a littelbit in suspense for the trip. But what we had in fear we got in beauty. A magnifisent view opent fore our eyes. From above we saw the clouds between the mountains. And the first sight of the Rain forest suddanly appeared from the roof of the world.
From Cousco to Atalya
Chulpas' de Ninamarca
Quitzal On the way we sow the beatyfull Quitzal and the funny red Cock og the Rock - El Maso!. After 14 hours we came to the river. Here waitet our Harakambut guide – Mateo and the Boat man Robin at us. At the second day – after sleeping at the good man Ernesto's place, we enteret the forest in the boat, which was our transport for the next 6 days. From the boat we enjoid the sounds of the rainforest – espesially diferent kinds of Oropendola's made a lot af beatyfull noises. Noises who specially 6 year old Aske was wery fond of. In the evening and the nigt it was the noises of different kind of insekts and frogs who made the noise picture in the forest.
The children takes bath in a Hot pond in the forest The second days biggest moments was when vi took a bath in a hot pond in the middle of the forest, with no other people arond. Only us and big blue butterflys flying around. Beatyfull. After this beatyfull experience we stayed the night in Shintuya in a brand new lodge there, were our neighbour was the spectacular Hoatzin. Day 3: Left early from the Lodge to see a parrots kolpa. We got our breakfirst at the beach just across the river more than 300 Blue Headed Parrots made a lot of noice and we enjoyed the beatyfull birds and in the air over the cloudy forest a lot of Vultures, Kites and Forest Falkons started the day in thier hunt fore a breakfirst. Day 4: Early out of bed. We stayed fore the night at Shipetiari in the forest, half an hour walk from the river. The morning was used for a trip in the forest loking for animals. On the way our shaman guide (which name also is Mateo!) showed us the biggest tree at his part of the forest. A huge giant tree – it was big – Big. So big that i almost became religious! Just to think of what that tree must have seen in its life. I think it must have been bigger thant some of the Baobab trees i saw in Ghana.
It is wery diffecult to see the animals in the forest, but we saw some monkeys – the small red tamarin and a big Howler monkey. In the afternoon we all vent fishing in the river. A very big experience becourse we vere fishing with poisened plants. In the river on the low water we saw a Sting Ray very clear.
Fishing trip Day 5: The plan was to go to Manu to look for Giant River Otter. But the lock wasent at our side. Just an hour before we came other people had seen Jaguar, but when we came the sky suddenly opent and the rain came down very heavy – so we could'nt see a thing. We vere disapointet but it wasent posible to se anything so we took off in the boat with the rain drumming on the roof. We waitet for the rain to stop in a shop in a small city along the river and from here we saw Black Skimmers and enjoyed the rains sound on the roof. It was a god experiense to have som hours in this small city, just to fallow the easy life of people waiting when its raining.
View from the river
Later that day we came to a brand new place (a gathering af lodges) were no one had stayed before. A fantastic place with big Blue-and-yellow Macaw and Scarlet Macaw was flying arond, just to menchen some off the birds arond the lodge. In the evening we told each other stories from our contries and We must say Mateo turnd out to be a wery good storyteller – eksiting. Day 6: Erly in the morning we left and sailed to a parrots Kolpa. Suddenly we heard the scream from the first Macaw and after some time the was around 60 Red-and-green Macaw and a lot of other birds. After this fantastic wiev our Harakambut-family waitet at the beach with pancacks and coffe – nice and after this nice breakfirst we had to say godbye to our friends in the Harakambut family. After that the trip was by car to Puerto Moldano were we stayed fore the night and the nekst day an aireplaine took us back to Lima. Thank you Wery much to all the people who help us having one af the biggest expiriences in our life. Thanks too: Tasmari, Gabi, jimny, Carmen, Cecilio, Robin, Mateo and Santiago.
All of us! We miss you. The danish people was: Aske 6 Years Freja 8 Years Magnus 11 Years Lizette 37 Years Carsten 37 Years
Sunset over Boca Manu