Volunteer project I
2 november 2015 - Manu National Park, Peru
It has been a while since I posted something, because I am in the jungle with irregular WiFi at the moment. My last post ended with the flight from Lima to Cusco. In Cusco, I had one and a half day for myself before I was picked up by Crees (the volunteer organization) and met the other volunteers. During that time I visited Saqsayhuaman, Q’enqo, Puka Pukara and Tambomachay, old Inca ruins in the neighbourhood of Cusco. They were very nice to see! I also went to a Peruvian dance show with typical clothing from all over Peru.
There were 8 volunteers in total. Before we went to the jungle we walked around and visited several musea in Cusco. On Thursday we had to get up at 4 to be able to avoid the demonstrations in Cusco to get out of the city. The bus ride to the cloudforest, where we would spend the first night, took us over a windy road through the mountains. The view was impressive, we could see the environment change rapidly from almost no trees to rainforest when we came lower and lower. In the cloudforest we saw the cock-on-the-rock, the national bird of Peru!
After a good night sleep we went another two hours with the bus before we reached the river Rio de Madre which we had to follow with a boat to get to the MLC (Manu Learning Center). The boat ride took us along riverbanks filled with green and many birds. This environment is so different from the one around Cusco! We arrived at the MLC around 10 o’clock. Here I will be spending the next month.
The first day was filled with introductions to everything. We started with a tour around the camp. We saw our rooms, the comedore (common room for eating and relaxing), the biogarden, the medicinal garden and the project room. All rules were explained, there was a sustainability talk and we were supposed to go out in the jungle to a nice viewpoint. However, due to rain and wind we didn't go anymore and we were sitting in the project room looking at species identification cards when we were told to leave the room immediately because a tree seemed to be about to fall on the roof.. Good first experience with nature in the jungle ;) Luckily, the tree didn’t fall. That night we got another taste of tropical nature; cockroaches everywhere! We had to scare them out of our bags and beds and it took a while before we dared to crawl under the blankets.
The next couple of days we went on a tropical ecology walk, we learned about some jungle skills (how to handle a manchete, compass, and safety whistle, how to cross a wild river and what to do when you encounter big cats or angry peccaries). We also had a trip to Salvacion, the nearest town where Crees helps the local community with setting up biogardens and agroforestry plots. We did a first aid course, a night walk through the jungle and we went to check some camera traps. On Saturday we had cake night, and Sunday is pancake-day. On Tuesday we started with the different volunteer tasks. I started with some camp-related tasks, so I had to collect bamboo-sticks to build a new roof in the biogarden, and I had to help dig a moat in the biogarden to make sure the biogarden won't flood in the upcoming wet season. I also had to repair butterfly traps and I was on camp duty, which means that I had to help with cooking and other tasks around camp. Thursday I joined in colpa: early in the morning we went to a place along the river where parakeets, parrots and macaws come together to feed on the clay and to socialize (maybe), we try to count and identify them to see how their populations are doing. It’s a lot of bird chattering ;). On Friday I went out to the forest to check all the amphibian and butterfly traps (we also saw howler monkeys), the day after I went to the other side of the river to help planting trees in an agroforestry plot.
In our free time, we can relax in a hammock, or in the biogarden, or in the comedore. During the evenings, we watch documentaries or presentations and there are debates and discussions, usually on sustainability subjects.
Saturday was Halloween, and everyone was dressed up! I was a skeleton; I had my skiing underwear on with toilet paper bones taped on to it. Someone was dressed up as Harry Potter, we had a Thor, a Roman guy, a hammock, a bird and many others. We played some games (musical chairs!) and there was a Peruvian tradition as well: all the dressed up people form one big family, and a baby cake is added to the family. So we baptized a cake and ate it afterwards. I don’t think we completely understood how it should have been done :p. It was a very special Halloween!
We went camping Sunday evening with a small group of volunteers. They have camping gear such as hammocks with build-in mosquito nets at the MLC, so we went to a blind in the wetland part of the forest and camped there! It was a cool experience, there were so many frogs and other animals around to listen to.
In general, the weather is hot and humid with some heavy storms in between. One night I was supposed to go out on a visual encounter survey to look for animals during the night, but it started to rain and thunder so bad that we had to go back. I have never seen so much lightning as that evening in my entire life.
This is the last post in the coming two to three weeks, since we leave for Romero tomorrow. Romero is a place even further in the jungle (8 hour boat trip!), where the rainforest is pristine instead of regenerating, as it is in the MLC. There we will do similar things as here, to compare the results and to see how the regenerating forest is doing compared to the pristine rainforest.
There were 8 volunteers in total. Before we went to the jungle we walked around and visited several musea in Cusco. On Thursday we had to get up at 4 to be able to avoid the demonstrations in Cusco to get out of the city. The bus ride to the cloudforest, where we would spend the first night, took us over a windy road through the mountains. The view was impressive, we could see the environment change rapidly from almost no trees to rainforest when we came lower and lower. In the cloudforest we saw the cock-on-the-rock, the national bird of Peru!
After a good night sleep we went another two hours with the bus before we reached the river Rio de Madre which we had to follow with a boat to get to the MLC (Manu Learning Center). The boat ride took us along riverbanks filled with green and many birds. This environment is so different from the one around Cusco! We arrived at the MLC around 10 o’clock. Here I will be spending the next month.
The first day was filled with introductions to everything. We started with a tour around the camp. We saw our rooms, the comedore (common room for eating and relaxing), the biogarden, the medicinal garden and the project room. All rules were explained, there was a sustainability talk and we were supposed to go out in the jungle to a nice viewpoint. However, due to rain and wind we didn't go anymore and we were sitting in the project room looking at species identification cards when we were told to leave the room immediately because a tree seemed to be about to fall on the roof.. Good first experience with nature in the jungle ;) Luckily, the tree didn’t fall. That night we got another taste of tropical nature; cockroaches everywhere! We had to scare them out of our bags and beds and it took a while before we dared to crawl under the blankets.
The next couple of days we went on a tropical ecology walk, we learned about some jungle skills (how to handle a manchete, compass, and safety whistle, how to cross a wild river and what to do when you encounter big cats or angry peccaries). We also had a trip to Salvacion, the nearest town where Crees helps the local community with setting up biogardens and agroforestry plots. We did a first aid course, a night walk through the jungle and we went to check some camera traps. On Saturday we had cake night, and Sunday is pancake-day. On Tuesday we started with the different volunteer tasks. I started with some camp-related tasks, so I had to collect bamboo-sticks to build a new roof in the biogarden, and I had to help dig a moat in the biogarden to make sure the biogarden won't flood in the upcoming wet season. I also had to repair butterfly traps and I was on camp duty, which means that I had to help with cooking and other tasks around camp. Thursday I joined in colpa: early in the morning we went to a place along the river where parakeets, parrots and macaws come together to feed on the clay and to socialize (maybe), we try to count and identify them to see how their populations are doing. It’s a lot of bird chattering ;). On Friday I went out to the forest to check all the amphibian and butterfly traps (we also saw howler monkeys), the day after I went to the other side of the river to help planting trees in an agroforestry plot.
In our free time, we can relax in a hammock, or in the biogarden, or in the comedore. During the evenings, we watch documentaries or presentations and there are debates and discussions, usually on sustainability subjects.
Saturday was Halloween, and everyone was dressed up! I was a skeleton; I had my skiing underwear on with toilet paper bones taped on to it. Someone was dressed up as Harry Potter, we had a Thor, a Roman guy, a hammock, a bird and many others. We played some games (musical chairs!) and there was a Peruvian tradition as well: all the dressed up people form one big family, and a baby cake is added to the family. So we baptized a cake and ate it afterwards. I don’t think we completely understood how it should have been done :p. It was a very special Halloween!
We went camping Sunday evening with a small group of volunteers. They have camping gear such as hammocks with build-in mosquito nets at the MLC, so we went to a blind in the wetland part of the forest and camped there! It was a cool experience, there were so many frogs and other animals around to listen to.
In general, the weather is hot and humid with some heavy storms in between. One night I was supposed to go out on a visual encounter survey to look for animals during the night, but it started to rain and thunder so bad that we had to go back. I have never seen so much lightning as that evening in my entire life.
This is the last post in the coming two to three weeks, since we leave for Romero tomorrow. Romero is a place even further in the jungle (8 hour boat trip!), where the rainforest is pristine instead of regenerating, as it is in the MLC. There we will do similar things as here, to compare the results and to see how the regenerating forest is doing compared to the pristine rainforest.
Xxx Chris
Geniet ervan! XXX Je zus