Cocha Blanca home to Giant Otters and delicious biscuits

Day 3 24th April 2006

A 5am start promised one of the best sights in the natural world, the Macaws gathering at a clay wall to eat minerals as a digestive aid.
Last time I was there, we floated down the river on a camouflaged pontoon and watched the action from close up.
In the three years since I was last at Blanquillo, the river has changed course and the lick (or Collpa) is now in front of a drying river bed.
This now means that there is a walk through the jungle preceding the wait for the parrots (who arrive at 6.30am) and the Macaws (who wait until 9am).
The added bonus of the trek was soon obvious as we encountered a troupe of Squirrel Monkey's making their noisy progress through the treetops.
The floating pontoon is now fixed in front of the lick and still has its anchor and steering wheel inside.
Due to the variable weather in the area our hopes weren't too high, but a reasonable numbers of parrots (including the pretty Orange Cheeked Parrot) made it down.
Once their numbers had diminished we had our breakfast and waited for the macaws to arrive.
A White Caiman lurked underneath the lick and a Black Carcara had stationed itself in a high tree above, neither of these creatures encouraged the nervous birds to make their visit.
As I waited I managed to track down a Ladder Tailed Nightjar resting in a cave opposite.
Around a dozen Macaws appeared but by 11am it was obvious that all the activity had spooked them and they started to leave.
We too had to move on towards our next location, a night spent waiting for Tapir on a platform in the middle of the forest five hours down river.
On the way we stopped at Cocha Blanca, an Oxbow Lake, where we hoped to see Giant Otters.
A Tiger Heron was waiting for us on the jetty as we boarded our catamaran, amidst the abundant birdlife, we munched biscuits and suddenly encountered a family group of Otters.
They came steadily closer bobbing up and down in the water mixing curiosity and aggression.
They really were a fabulous sight and with only 70 animals in the whole Manu reserve I felt privileged to have seen them.
On the way to the Tapir lick we saw numerous Black Skimmer, Horned Screamers and more Caiman by the side of the river.
On arrival we ate our dinner and walked an hour through the jungle to the platform.
Overlooking a mineral lick the platform had mattresses and mosquitos nets and nothing else.
Tapir are nocturnal animals, normally, not this night though, a group of three tourists were already on the platform when we got there and had watched a Tapir in daylight for a whole hour.
All night we waited, every rustle in the rainforest raising expectation but by sunrise there had been no Tapir action, they are another timid animal and may have been put off by our smell which was getting worse by the day.