Friday 19th October. I’m writing this blog in a small hotel, come hostal, in a Lima suburb. The circumstances of how we came to be here being another story! Anyway for now the internet is working so I’d better bring you up to date with our latest adventure – five days travelling the entire length of the Manu Road, from Cuzco to Antalya, and back. To call it a ‘road’ would be an insult to any highway engineer – in reality it’s a mud track, which clings to the side of the Andes, as it descends 3,ooo m. to the edge of the Amazon basin. We were in the capable hands of Rivelino our guide – very knowledgable and enthusiastic, and our highly competent driver, from Amazon Birding. We stayed two nights at the Cock of the Rock lodge followed by another two at the Amazonia lodge, reached by an exciting boat ride down the Madre de Dios river, a tributary of the Amazon. We saw 259 bird species, four monkey species and a snake, – and it was truly the adventure of a life time!

Male Cock of the Rock, a member of the birds of paradise family.

Green Jay

Cinnamon Flycatcher

an up close and personal encounter with the rare Solitary Eagle

a magnificent Golden-headed Quetzal

being watched at breakfast by a Brown Capuchin monkey

one of many spectacular hummingbirds…. (that’s code for ‘can’t remember the name!’)

Rufous-crested Coquette

Highland Motmot

the pre-historic looking Hoatzins

a Chestnut-eared Aricari

a mountain village, on the way over the high Andes, 4,600m

approaching the river port of Antalya