2002-08-05 19:54:06Ya Wen H.
Manu Biosphere Reserve．PERU
這是我一個美國朋友Carmen的來信，她長期在南美洲的秘魯做志工，從事改善農村婦女生活、輔導兒童的特殊教育等服務工作。上星期她前往秘魯有名的生態保護區旅行，和朋友們一起分享她的叢林之旅。
Manu Biosphere Reserve這個保護區，當我還在秘魯時就已耳聞，和我一起學西語的美國同學Mark給予高度評價的生態保護區。Mark是位生態保護學家，他和老婆都在美國的大學裡教書，Manu Biosphere Reserve是他們到秘魯的主要行程之一。Mark曾極力推薦我千萬不要錯過此地，但受限於旅費盤纏（因為到保護區的旅費非常昂貴），加上Mark描述在他眼中各種稀世珍寶的昆蟲模樣（但在我聽來有點兒恐怖）。
我想，我還是做個保護環境的世界公民，讓它維持原貌，別去打擾那些稀有昆蟲的生活吧！
但對於深居在叢林裡的部落，我倒是挺感興趣的。
“....On Wed.(7/24) last week I received an all-expense paid trip (starting Friday morning) to the Manu Biosphere Reserve which is in Peru - SE of Cusco. By plane it takes 20 minutes of flying time to the closest possible village before a truck route to a tiny village on the river where people then travel deeper into the jungle by
motorized canoe.
Well, needless to say the group I was with traveled by truck - this truck looked comfortable, carried about 16 people - separated from the driver/cab as it was attached somehow....Well, by truck, the trip took 12 hours!!! It was very comfortable for the first 45 minutes (we were on a paved road), then a turn-off, then no paving - only dirt, rocks and zillions of potholes for the next 10 hours! All a person could do was hold on!
It was an incredible experience for me - the journey takes one UP to about 13,000 feet above sea level, high in the puna where absolutely NOTHING grows, then gradually lower and lower into a village that is the last stop before going UP again to the entrance of
the Manu.
The Manu Biosphere Reserve is about the size of Texas and a good portion of it is not accessible to anyone--even guides. There are many tribes that live within that area who have never seen/met white people, and some tribes that still do not know fire. It is dangerous because the white stranger would probably be killed by tribesmen...This information is known because of reports from missionaries who went in before it was a restricted zone.
There are 2 areas accessible to tourists. The first is the cultural area - there are villages once one gets down far enough into the jungle - and the last village called Atalaya which services tourists by providing canoes for the river travel. There is no other way to travel in the jungle except by river.
The second place travelers can go is beyond Atalaya, by river for 2 days - the entrance into the reserve. Here only specialized ecological guides, sanctioned by the Manu overseerers, can bring outsiders. There are only a few places that they go - Lodges have been built and there are special places tourists are taken.
The woman I work with, Marichely（她是個從事兒童特殊教育工作的秘魯朋友）, is married to a man who has an agency - Manu specialists. Hugo was the first guide to bring outsiders into the Manu about 20 years ago, and has enormous experience. In the truck
with us were 2 groups of 4/5 young people and 2 other
guides. Hugo only hires bilingual (english/spanish) anthropologists or geologists. One of those groups was going deep into the reserve for 9 days.
My trip with Marichely and Hugo was wonderful. On the second day, after a river journey, Hugo, Marichely, myself, and 2 others went deep into the rain forest and saw an oxbow lake, as well as hundreds of other marvelous natural wonders!!
The 2 others were: Victoria - a 17 yrs old daughter of the family we stayed with that day/night. She was brought up in the jungle and told me that sometimes she had to swim across the river on a school day because there was trouble with the canoe. After getting across to the other side, she and her siblings would walk 2 hours in the jungle to school. Each day- about 3 hours of hard trekking!
Milton was a young man who piloted our canoe for the 2 days we needed him. In his early 20's I guess - he walked behind me and Victoria thru the rain forest. He wore nothing but a pair of shorts!! The bugs were thick, and I wouldn't have wanted to walk barefoot
over some of the ground we had to walk, but Milton was a true man of the selva! (forest)
There were so many new things I saw in just 4 days! Exotic birds, GIGANTIC, ENORMOUS ferns, 180 foot trees, all sorts of wild and mysterious plants and insects. Termite nests the size of 2 computers stacked on top of each other (!), a particular bird
that is PRE-historic - that is, it bears NO relationship to the birds of the earth - except that outwardly it flies! Apparently, the reason that it did not go extinct is because its meat is foul! But Milton told me that it is good for asthmatics to eat! When we were gazing at several of these ancient species, I looked down, and there was a feather from that bird! I picked it up and will give it to Nathan.（Nathan是Carmen的兒子）
The drive back to civilization from Pilcopata on Monday was harrowing. We left later than I think was planned and there was a lot of traffic coming INTO the jungle on the steep narrow cliff-hanging roads. Our driver had to back up about 4 times to a larger space so that the oncoming truck could pass. There were
areas of DEEP mud - like the tire tracks were over a foot deep - that was scary. Waterfalls that cascaded over the road created streams across the road, and the water then plunged down the edge of the road into another waterfall....the drops were in thousands of feet too...
When the truck came to a stream it had to slow down to a literal crawl because of potential potholes and because of the speed of the water. Many times the truck swayed back and forth so much that I thought we would just tip over and plummet down the cliff....but, fortunately, it was not my karma to die that way.
There are many road accidents in Peru - there have been already this year, 235 people dying on the roads of Peru in the first six months of this year....driver falls asleep, the bus goes off the road or crashes into another bus..bad road judgement, etc. There was a moment of real fear for me when at dusk a huge truckload of local people wanted to pass us. He pulled over close to a waterfall - to his left. I saw the space he left our driver.....and I saw how the
road slanted over my left and down the side to oblivion. The other truck driver was waving for us to pass him....I just remember saying, Oh, dear God.....
BUT, instead of following the waving to pass, our driver backed up quite far and found a place with a lot more space and no waterfall. The larger truck then passed US....Ojala! Gracias a Dios! WHEW!
Well, there is so much more to tell...”
Manu Biosphere Reserve這個保護區，當我還在秘魯時就已耳聞，和我一起學西語的美國同學Mark給予高度評價的生態保護區。Mark是位生態保護學家，他和老婆都在美國的大學裡教書，Manu Biosphere Reserve是他們到秘魯的主要行程之一。Mark曾極力推薦我千萬不要錯過此地，但受限於旅費盤纏（因為到保護區的旅費非常昂貴），加上Mark描述在他眼中各種稀世珍寶的昆蟲模樣（但在我聽來有點兒恐怖）。
我想，我還是做個保護環境的世界公民，讓它維持原貌，別去打擾那些稀有昆蟲的生活吧！
但對於深居在叢林裡的部落，我倒是挺感興趣的。
“....On Wed.(7/24) last week I received an all-expense paid trip (starting Friday morning) to the Manu Biosphere Reserve which is in Peru - SE of Cusco. By plane it takes 20 minutes of flying time to the closest possible village before a truck route to a tiny village on the river where people then travel deeper into the jungle by
motorized canoe.
Well, needless to say the group I was with traveled by truck - this truck looked comfortable, carried about 16 people - separated from the driver/cab as it was attached somehow....Well, by truck, the trip took 12 hours!!! It was very comfortable for the first 45 minutes (we were on a paved road), then a turn-off, then no paving - only dirt, rocks and zillions of potholes for the next 10 hours! All a person could do was hold on!
It was an incredible experience for me - the journey takes one UP to about 13,000 feet above sea level, high in the puna where absolutely NOTHING grows, then gradually lower and lower into a village that is the last stop before going UP again to the entrance of
the Manu.
The Manu Biosphere Reserve is about the size of Texas and a good portion of it is not accessible to anyone--even guides. There are many tribes that live within that area who have never seen/met white people, and some tribes that still do not know fire. It is dangerous because the white stranger would probably be killed by tribesmen...This information is known because of reports from missionaries who went in before it was a restricted zone.
There are 2 areas accessible to tourists. The first is the cultural area - there are villages once one gets down far enough into the jungle - and the last village called Atalaya which services tourists by providing canoes for the river travel. There is no other way to travel in the jungle except by river.
The second place travelers can go is beyond Atalaya, by river for 2 days - the entrance into the reserve. Here only specialized ecological guides, sanctioned by the Manu overseerers, can bring outsiders. There are only a few places that they go - Lodges have been built and there are special places tourists are taken.
The woman I work with, Marichely（她是個從事兒童特殊教育工作的秘魯朋友）, is married to a man who has an agency - Manu specialists. Hugo was the first guide to bring outsiders into the Manu about 20 years ago, and has enormous experience. In the truck
with us were 2 groups of 4/5 young people and 2 other
guides. Hugo only hires bilingual (english/spanish) anthropologists or geologists. One of those groups was going deep into the reserve for 9 days.
My trip with Marichely and Hugo was wonderful. On the second day, after a river journey, Hugo, Marichely, myself, and 2 others went deep into the rain forest and saw an oxbow lake, as well as hundreds of other marvelous natural wonders!!
The 2 others were: Victoria - a 17 yrs old daughter of the family we stayed with that day/night. She was brought up in the jungle and told me that sometimes she had to swim across the river on a school day because there was trouble with the canoe. After getting across to the other side, she and her siblings would walk 2 hours in the jungle to school. Each day- about 3 hours of hard trekking!
Milton was a young man who piloted our canoe for the 2 days we needed him. In his early 20's I guess - he walked behind me and Victoria thru the rain forest. He wore nothing but a pair of shorts!! The bugs were thick, and I wouldn't have wanted to walk barefoot
over some of the ground we had to walk, but Milton was a true man of the selva! (forest)
There were so many new things I saw in just 4 days! Exotic birds, GIGANTIC, ENORMOUS ferns, 180 foot trees, all sorts of wild and mysterious plants and insects. Termite nests the size of 2 computers stacked on top of each other (!), a particular bird
that is PRE-historic - that is, it bears NO relationship to the birds of the earth - except that outwardly it flies! Apparently, the reason that it did not go extinct is because its meat is foul! But Milton told me that it is good for asthmatics to eat! When we were gazing at several of these ancient species, I looked down, and there was a feather from that bird! I picked it up and will give it to Nathan.（Nathan是Carmen的兒子）
The drive back to civilization from Pilcopata on Monday was harrowing. We left later than I think was planned and there was a lot of traffic coming INTO the jungle on the steep narrow cliff-hanging roads. Our driver had to back up about 4 times to a larger space so that the oncoming truck could pass. There were
areas of DEEP mud - like the tire tracks were over a foot deep - that was scary. Waterfalls that cascaded over the road created streams across the road, and the water then plunged down the edge of the road into another waterfall....the drops were in thousands of feet too...
When the truck came to a stream it had to slow down to a literal crawl because of potential potholes and because of the speed of the water. Many times the truck swayed back and forth so much that I thought we would just tip over and plummet down the cliff....but, fortunately, it was not my karma to die that way.
There are many road accidents in Peru - there have been already this year, 235 people dying on the roads of Peru in the first six months of this year....driver falls asleep, the bus goes off the road or crashes into another bus..bad road judgement, etc. There was a moment of real fear for me when at dusk a huge truckload of local people wanted to pass us. He pulled over close to a waterfall - to his left. I saw the space he left our driver.....and I saw how the
road slanted over my left and down the side to oblivion. The other truck driver was waving for us to pass him....I just remember saying, Oh, dear God.....
BUT, instead of following the waving to pass, our driver backed up quite far and found a place with a lot more space and no waterfall. The larger truck then passed US....Ojala! Gracias a Dios! WHEW!
Well, there is so much more to tell...”