Manu Road - Survey of trips 2001-2004

Manu Road: Introduction

Going from Cusco to the reserve of Manu National Park you will reach the Acjanaco pass, the boundary of the reserve. This stretch of around 100 km takes a drive of 5 hours.

From the pass a winding road is going down from 3500 m.a.s.l. to Atalaya at 600 m.a.s.l.. This part of again nearly 100 km we call the Manu Road. Atalaya is a small harbour, departing point for the boats going deeper into Manu along the river Alto Madre de Dios.

Most of our bird watching tours take 3-4 days to bird the Manu Road, concentrating on four places:

1. Pillahuata at 2600 m.a.s.l. - temperate forest. Often we have here an overnight stay, ´camping¨ on the floor of a building.
2. Rocotal at 2000 m.a.s.l. - cloud forest. Often we spend some time in this area on the way down .
3. San Pedro at 1500 m.a.s.l. - lowest part of the Cloud Forest and start of the Upper Tropical Zone. Here are different lodges, amongst them the well-known Cock-of-the-Rock lodge, that we often use for of a stay of 2-3 nights.
4. Quitecalzones at 1000 m.a.s.l. Just under San Pedro starts an area with extensive patches of Guadua bamboo, going on till the first village, Chontechaca.

This area we bird during the morning if we go down to Amazonia Lodge. From this first village on to other villages (Patria, Pilcopata) the deforestation is considerable and for that reason we don´t spend much time on the lower part of the Manu Road.

the Bird List

During the years that we organise tours to Manu, we have seen more than 400 species of birds between the altitude range of 800-3500 m.a.s.l. And still we hope to find another 20-30 species, that are reported here. In May 2005 encountered Juvenal Ccahuana and David Geale during a trip the best of all, the ¨San Pedro¨Tanager. This new tanager is collected in May 2004, after it was seen twice by only one person the years before. A miracle that nobody has seen it, considering that the Manu Road is one of the most birded places in Perú. Also after it was collected, the bird is nearly not found.

In the bird list you will see 4 columns after the bird name
altrange = the altitude range for that species
2700 = our observations between 2200- 3500 m.a.s.l. (Pillahuata)
1800 = our observations between 1400- 2200 m.a.s.l. (San Pedro, Rocotal)
1200 = our observations between 1000- 1400 m.a.s.l. (Quitecalzones)

Click here to see the bird list

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