{"id":1622,"date":"2019-10-29T11:58:55","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T15:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/psnp_\/?p=1622"},"modified":"2019-10-31T06:44:35","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T10:44:35","slug":"birding-the-manu-road-peru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psnp.info\/psnp_\/?p=1622","title":{"rendered":"Birding the Manu Road, Peru"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The series of valleys through which the Manu Road runs, taken from Wayqecha Biological Station on the Manu Road. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Amazon Journeys invited me to join them for a 7 day \u201cBirding the Manu Road\u201c adventure on the eastern slopes of the Andes in Peru. The Manu Road is famous among birders worldwide. It runs along the edge of the largest National Park in Peru, Manu National Park, starting at a high pass, over 11,000 feet, in the Puna (dry highland grass and shrub land) and descending through a series of elfin forest slopes and cloud forest valleys to the lowland foothill rain forest along the Manu river…some 50 miles and 10,000 feet lower. It is rough. It can be muddy. It often has spectacular wash outs with raw landslides, sheer drops, and rudimentary repairs. There are two tight blind tunnels, hacked around corners through outcroppings. There are waterfalls, big and little. There are deep cloud filled valleys where you can just barely hear the rushing stream at the bottom. There are vistas where you can watch the clouds come up out of the lowlands and climb toward the high passes above. There are orchids and wildflowers of all kinds and bromeliads and the kind of butterflies that will enliven your dreams. And there are birds. Astounding, wonderful, birds. Birds you will not see many other places. Many birds you that are only easily seen along the Manu Road. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Western slopes of the Andes north of Cusco<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You begin your journey in Cusco, one of the highest and one of the oldest cities in the Americas. (I recommend coming in a day early to get at least a little used to the altitude…11,500 feet can be a stain on anyone\u2019s system.) Your real adventure beings when you leave Cusco to drive across the high dry slopes of the western Andes. You wind up and down and around over passes and across slopes, never getting much lower than 10,000 feet. Of course you stop along the way for birding. My guide, Pepe Rojas, took us first to Lake Haurcapy, a marshy high elevation lake (close to 10,000 feet). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lake Haurcapy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There we picked up our first typical Andean birds. Yellow-winged Blackbirds in the reeds around the lake, Puna Teal on the water, Hooded Siskin, Bare-faced Ground Dove, and Chequanco Thrush along the brushy margins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n