A vacation in Peru almost certainly involves a visit to Machu Picchu, the spectacular Incan citadel in the Andes. It's an easy excursion out of Cusco, a city that also serves as a base for exploring other pre-Colombian ruins, colonial towns and stunning Andean scenery. And thanks to several tour companies, the Peruvian Amazon is an easy drive over and down the Andes for an even more exotic discovery.
The Amazon rain forest actually covers sixty percent of Peru, where moisture from the high Andes feeds massive rivers that all eventually source the Amazon River. The tributaries of one of these waterways, the Madre de Dios, collects water in the mountains northeast of Cusco. 200 kilometers away from the ancient city, 10,000 feet lower in altitude, is Atalaya, where the wide river is just navigable enough for wildlife-hungry tourists.
As part of their three-day Manu Short Trip, Wild Watch Peru drives you as far as this sleepy riverside town for a motorboat trip down the upper Madre de Dios River. For many adventurers, this is the start of the only route into nearby Manu National Park and its protected rain forest environment. But on our short trip, we'd have to settle for a several miles-long boat ride that would just give us a taste of the jungle's river habitat. And that day's sunrise excursion was to see macaws and other parrots satisfying their own unique cravings.
I had heard of salt licks, natural outcroppings where animals go to obtain sodium chloride and other nutrients; in the Amazon, eroding clay cliffs offer similar minerals to hungry animal life. These clay licks offer a unique opportunity to see wild parrots in large gatherings as they supplement their diets.
Apparently the numbers of birds and their frequency of visiting the licks vary with seasons, so our guide decided sunrise would be the best chance at seeing the animals during our late April excursion. Within minutes of reaching the dock in Atalaya, Mario our skipper showed up in that morning's transport, a six passenger river boat with outboard motor and protective rain canopy.
Ricardo was an experienced wildlife tour guide with many years leading groups into the rain forest. Unlike other tour leaders, he advised us to wear drab-colored clothing so as not to look too conspicuous to the nervous birds on our target list. As a result I kept my bright blue windbreaker/rainwear tucked away in my backpack and suffered the unexpected chill of a damp, Amazon dawn.
But like all the other guides, ours insisted we stand back hundreds of feet from the clay cliff we had finally reached. From the wide, rocky beach we could clearly see the terra cotta-colored ridge but I would guess it was at least a football field's length away. Any closer and we'd have scared any birds away. With the aid of Ricardo's scope we indeed saw some parrots and even macaws eyeing the licks from nearby trees and eventually we saw them cling to them for their morning vitamin regimen.
Fortunately a number of macaws, always in pairs, noisily approached the cliff from several directions. Often they flew overhead, but even with their vocal warnings, I wasn't fast enough to get good shots of them - the birds were obscured in their own shadows in the overcast morning light. Nonetheless my grainy and dark pictures helped confirm our guide's information that we were observing both chestnut-fronted and blue-and-yellow macaws.
The wide, rocky beach served as a picnic sight for our breakfast and also a base to see other birds like southern crested caracaras and capped herons. Later in the day, returning to Atalaya upriver, all the while avoiding rapids and struggling against swift currents, we saw even more Amazonian birds.
Most notable for me were the chestnut-fronted macaws. These bright green birds with their blue and red wings would be the most common parrot we'd see in the skies and in the trees during our short river adventure in a tiny section of the largest rain forest on Earth. They served as a consistent, reassuring reminder that the jungle basin was still a safe home for exotic wildlife.
The Amazon rain forest actually covers sixty percent of Peru, where moisture from the high Andes feeds massive rivers that all eventually source the Amazon River. The tributaries of one of these waterways, the Madre de Dios, collects water in the mountains northeast of Cusco. 200 kilometers away from the ancient city, 10,000 feet lower in altitude, is Atalaya, where the wide river is just navigable enough for wildlife-hungry tourists.
As part of their three-day Manu Short Trip, Wild Watch Peru drives you as far as this sleepy riverside town for a motorboat trip down the upper Madre de Dios River. For many adventurers, this is the start of the only route into nearby Manu National Park and its protected rain forest environment. But on our short trip, we'd have to settle for a several miles-long boat ride that would just give us a taste of the jungle's river habitat. And that day's sunrise excursion was to see macaws and other parrots satisfying their own unique cravings.
I had heard of salt licks, natural outcroppings where animals go to obtain sodium chloride and other nutrients; in the Amazon, eroding clay cliffs offer similar minerals to hungry animal life. These clay licks offer a unique opportunity to see wild parrots in large gatherings as they supplement their diets.
Apparently the numbers of birds and their frequency of visiting the licks vary with seasons, so our guide decided sunrise would be the best chance at seeing the animals during our late April excursion. Within minutes of reaching the dock in Atalaya, Mario our skipper showed up in that morning's transport, a six passenger river boat with outboard motor and protective rain canopy.
Ricardo was an experienced wildlife tour guide with many years leading groups into the rain forest. Unlike other tour leaders, he advised us to wear drab-colored clothing so as not to look too conspicuous to the nervous birds on our target list. As a result I kept my bright blue windbreaker/rainwear tucked away in my backpack and suffered the unexpected chill of a damp, Amazon dawn.
But like all the other guides, ours insisted we stand back hundreds of feet from the clay cliff we had finally reached. From the wide, rocky beach we could clearly see the terra cotta-colored ridge but I would guess it was at least a football field's length away. Any closer and we'd have scared any birds away. With the aid of Ricardo's scope we indeed saw some parrots and even macaws eyeing the licks from nearby trees and eventually we saw them cling to them for their morning vitamin regimen.
Fortunately a number of macaws, always in pairs, noisily approached the cliff from several directions. Often they flew overhead, but even with their vocal warnings, I wasn't fast enough to get good shots of them - the birds were obscured in their own shadows in the overcast morning light. Nonetheless my grainy and dark pictures helped confirm our guide's information that we were observing both chestnut-fronted and blue-and-yellow macaws.
The wide, rocky beach served as a picnic sight for our breakfast and also a base to see other birds like southern crested caracaras and capped herons. Later in the day, returning to Atalaya upriver, all the while avoiding rapids and struggling against swift currents, we saw even more Amazonian birds.
Most notable for me were the chestnut-fronted macaws. These bright green birds with their blue and red wings would be the most common parrot we'd see in the skies and in the trees during our short river adventure in a tiny section of the largest rain forest on Earth. They served as a consistent, reassuring reminder that the jungle basin was still a safe home for exotic wildlife.
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| Early morning Rio de Madre view from Atalaya. |
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| Our Rio de Madre transport in Atalaya. |
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| Several miles downriver from Atalaya, setting up for observing the clay cliffs and licks in the background. |
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| Another group on the Madre de Dios beach observing parrots on the clay lick. |
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| Another boat on the Madre de Dios beach. |
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| Pair of chestnut-fronted macaws flying away from the clay lick. |
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| Pair of chestnut-fronted macaws flying away from the clay lick. |
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| Four chestnut-fronted macaws near the clay lick. They were almost always in pairs. |
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| View upriver from the beach. |
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| Macaws overhead. |
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| Blue-and-gold macaws over the beach. |
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| Our river transport on another Madre de Dios beach. |
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| Capped heron. |
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| Southern crested caracara. |
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| Southern crested caracara. |
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| Butterflies on our river boat. |
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| White-winged swallow over the Madre de Dios River. |
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| Snowy egret over the Madre de Dios River. |
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| Chestnut-fronted macaws near Atalaya. |
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| Boat-billed flycatcher near Atalaya. |
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| Butterfly on the beach in Atalaya. |
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| White-bellied parrot in storefront in Atalaya. A number of wild parrots, including macaws, become local peoples' pets. |
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