Pacaya Samiria reserve

24/09/2013 I arrived this morning to Yurimaguas, after my 5 days tour in the selva. It was absolutely amazing, I think I could have stayed there for a month or even more. On the first day, I went early in the morning at the tour agency where I met my guide: Santos. We loaded the moto taxi with everything we needed for the trip and drove to the park entrance. We took a wood canoa and we started our journey. After few minutes you already feel you are completely in another world. You are sitting in the canoa, completely in silence, observing the nature and listening. I just said in silence but the truth is that in these 5 days we didn't have one minute of it. All the time you can hear birds, frogs, crickets, fishes swimming on the water surface, crocodile entering into the water, monkeys jumping from on branch to another one. You can really spend hours just listening at the selva and its fauna. After couple of days I could already recognised some birds by their sounds. Parrots are beautiful, I can't say anything about it, but they are also very noisy and so annoying! They love to live in big groups, and inside the group they live in couples. They sing/talk/discuss all the time very aloud, I think they love to ruin the quite of the selva and to bother other animals. I don't know why but every time I heard a group of parrots, I immediately thought about all the noisy israelis guys traveling in big groups... In the reserve there are few rustic accommodations for the night and more simple ones just to take a lunch break during the trip, with a fire place. These were the only locations where I met some people during the whole trip. For the rest of the time, I was alone with my guide. On the first day I met 5 European girls, 2 from Swizerland, 2 from of Austria and 1 from Germany. We had some fun together, really nice atmosphere. But the day after we had to say goodbye because we were travelling to different sections of the river. Then I met a french man, travelling alone with his guide. We lunched together and talked about our travels. He wanted to go to Yurimaguas after the trip, so I suggested him to stay at the hostel where I stayed. After my trip, I met him again at this hostel and he talked to me about a farm where he was going to volunteer the day after. And right now I'm writing from that farm, I decided to leave with him for this new experience. But this is another story.... The second night in the selva was without doubts the most interesting. That night the alojamento was full: I was the only tourist, the others were other guides of the park. They asked me about my trip, my life and then they told me more about their lives as a guide and about their village. It was very sad to hear how hard is their lives. In Lagunas there is no job, other than fishing, agriculture and tourism. The quantity of fishes, vegetables and fruits is so high that the prices of these products are very low and your earn is not enough to live. Just to make an example, few days ago I bought more than 20 bananas (the little ones, very sweet) for 0.30$... Also working in tourism is not easy. Salary are low, and because this reserve is not so famous, there are not so many tourists. Besides this, working as a guide means living far from home for long time, sometimes even a month and some of them told me that because of this their marriage didn't survive. Every guide working in Pacaya Samiria needs to participate to the vigilance shift. In general the shift lasts 10 days, but for some of these guys at the alojamento lasted 1 month and that one was their last night in the reserve, they were very happy to be able to go back home. Their duty during this period is to avoid animals traffic and animals hunt. In the first years, about 10-20 years ago, lot of animals were killed or capture to sell them in the black market. But now, with the vigilance service, this practice diminished drastically. In Perù animals traffic is still a big problem , in particular the mono guapo (a monkey) is one of most requested animals. A group of the reserve is constantly working to find captured animals and to free them in the selva. Turtles are also present in this area, but their survival is at risk too because they don't really have beach where to deposit their eggs. The water level of the river can change drastically according to the quantity of rain. So the deposit sites of the eggs can be completely covered with water after the rain. The guides of the park decided to collect all the eggs in some sand boxes and to free successively the little turtles in the river. Last year 4000 turtles were born in this way. Santos, my guide, was a very quiet person, not one of those guide that talks or says jokes all the time. But I really liked him. He had a great knowledge about every species of animals and plants of the selva. He could see very easily some animals hidden on the top of some trees, while it took me much more effort to see them, even when he was pointing them with his finger! But at the end of the 5 days trip, I was already be able to look for animals in the selva and to recognise some of them by their sounds. I just needed some practice. We hiked twice into the selva. The first time we walked in a very wet area. The day after we walked in a another area, drier, with different vegetation and a little lakes. In both cases the walk was challenging : in the first hike, we had to walk in the mud or in the water (we were wearing boots), while in the second one we had to walk on some woods to cross rivers and lakes. I felt like one of those gymnasts doing an exercise at the Olympics... The guide showed me different kinds of trees and he explained me the use of some of them in natural medicine to cure temperature, stomachache, wounds etc. Then in the evening I took a note about all these plants and their names: too difficult to remember them, some were in Spanish and other in some indigenous language. On the third night we took the canoa and we looked for crocodiles. This is the best moment to see them because their eyes become red when illuminated with a torch light. We found easily a little crocodile, only 1 year old. Santos took him with his hand and he wanted me to hold him, but maybe I'm too animal lover and I begged him to release him into the water because I didn't want him to be afraid of us. The guide laughed about me, but he immediately released the crocodile. Then we saw other crocodiles, also a big one, but we didn't even try to get near it, too dangerous. That night we also saw hundreds of lucciole (little insects that make light, don't know the English name and right now I can't access to Wikipedia ) , what a show! Impressive was also the sky, full of stars. But as soon as the moon rose, the night was completely illuminated. I never realised how the moon light can be strong. During the trip the weather was sunny almost all the time. But on the first day we had a strong rain that lasted more than one hour. We were very lucky because at that time we were having lunch in one of the alojamento. Less lucky we were on the last day, when the rain surprised us 30 minutes before getting to the exit of the park. We were on the canoe and of course we got completely wet. There is nothing you can do nothing it, just keep going. During all the other days it was very sunny and hot, very very hot. Just to get some, refreshment, I jumped into the river many times. When you are in a place like this one, you don't care if the river is brown, you only have to make sure that no crocodile swims in the same water. During the last day, we lost our canoe. We were resting on the side of the river and suddenly I saw that the canoe was brought 30 m away by the stream. Without even thinking twice, I jumped into the water, I reached the canoe and I started pushing it. It was heavier than what I thought and the water was high, so I couldn't even reach the ground with my feet. It took lot of energy to get back the canoe against the stream, but at the end I managed. My guide, during those minutes, was quite worried, but I assured him that I was ok and that I could do it without any help. This is the only time he let me help him. For 5 days he didn't let me do anything, not even prepare the food, washing dishes, load or unload the canoe. He made feel like a princess... even if I felt a little bit uncomfortable about it. One of activities that tourists always do in the park is fishing. Of course this is not for me, so on the same day I booked the tour I told to the agency I wasn't interested in fishing. But one day Santos asked me if he could fish for himself. In a normal situation I would answer negative, in particular after I expressly stated that I didn't want to fish. But here is different. Fishes are the main meal for people in this area, they eat fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's a free meal and most probably they just can't afford to buy other food. So I didn't feel the right to stop him to fish. On the other side, I didn't want him to kill an animal in front of me, but unfortunately I couldn't avoid it. This was for sure the hardest part of the trip. These 5 days passed very fast, I really loved this tour. I could easily remain in the reserve for a month or even more...