Vagabond Rick Travels The World

My last adventure in Latin America was a visit to Manu National Park in the Amazon Basin in Peru.  I went all out with a five day, four night stay at Manu Wildlife Center which has a great reputation.  Manu WC is owned by Inkanatura and another agency and I did my booking through Inkanatura.  I knew something was wrong when I tried to do the initial booking because I gave them specific times when I was available and told them that it was urgent that we complete the booking because I had other things like kayaking to book as soon as Manu (#1 priority) was done, but they went dead on me for a few days.  I should probably have moved on, but I sent another email to once again convey the urgency. 

Finally, they made a reservation that backed up to my May 31st departure date from Peru.  Things were fine when I was not talking to them!  When I arrived in Cusco, they had failed to let me know when I would have my pre-departure meeting.  I chased them down and said I was concerned with their poor communication and that I expected a lot more since I was paying them a lot of money for this trip.  They were going to come to my hotel, but then requested I come to their office.  I went to the office and the guy that was suppose to meet me was not there.  Another person handled my information and informed me that they would pick me up at 8:15 AM.  When I got to the hotel late that night I was given a message saying they would see me at 6:20 AM.  A fairly significant difference in time to hear about late at night and I knew I would be lucky if things did not get worse based on just about every communication I had with Inkanatura so far.  If I had only known half of the truth…

I flew to Boca Manu with three fun couples.  When we arrived, we split up with one couple and myself taking a 90 minute boat ride on the Rio de Madre de Dios (Mother of God – Is that Virgin Mary or did God have a mother or is it just a saying???) to the lodge.  The ride was great and the lodge was fantastic with nice bungalows, no electricity and beautiful grounds on the river.  I was quickly forgetting about the morons at Inkanatura.  We soon learned that the food was also great at this lodge and that is no small feat considering the logistical issues.  All of the staff at the lodge were friendly and very professional.  Ah, just what I paid for!  A typical day at Manu Wildlife Center involves an early morning rise, breakfast followed by an all-morning adventure, lunch, siesta, afternoon/early evening adventure, dinner and early to bed.  My kind of day very reminiscent of Africa.  None of the stupidity found at Madidi where things don’t start until after the wildlife has been up for hours.

The early morning adventures included hikes on the wonderful trail system surrounding the lodge, a boat trip to a macaw and parrot clay lick or a boat trip on an oxbow lake.  The afternoon adventures also included hiking on the trails and a climb up to a canopy perch.  There is also a night adventure to a tapir clay lick and nighttime hike on the trail leading back  to the lodge.  The hikes included beautiful rainforest trees and other plants as well as animal sigthings such as many different birds, insects like butterflies and spiders, reptiles, amphibians and mammals like ten different monkeys, peccaries, capabyra, agouti and maybe jaguar.  We saw five different monkeys and we saw them often.  They included squirrel, red howler, black spider, white-fronted capuchin and brown capuchin.  The monkey sightings were always fun.  The bird sightings such as vultures, macaws, hawks and parrots were also fun and numerous.  The rainforest around the lodge is quite beautiful.  It is full of noises and at the same time very quiet and peaceful.

The boat rides on the river and oxbows included caiman, thousands of birds like watsons, kingfishers, herons and storks, giant river otters and maybe jaguar.  Unfortunately, our group missed jaguars, but three of the other groups at the lodge during the week saw a jaguar on the riverbank three different occasions.  It’s just one of those things with wildlife and I still hold out for a jaguar sighting in Brazil’s Pantanal in August.  I thought we were quite lucky with our macaw lick visit, finding giant river otters and tapir, and our other sightings in general.  A clay lick is where animals congregate to eat clay which has nutrients they need to digest poisonous fruits.  The clay has sodium and other chemicals nto normally in their diet.  A clay lick is a wall or ground area which is bare of plants.  The macaw lick at Manu is a short and wide wall of clay that used to be a riverbank.  There is a blind across from the wall where visitors reach at daybreak and sit comfortably waiting for the show to begin.  Parrots and parakeets arrive first.  They hang out in the trees above the lick until they are comfortable enough to go to the wall where they are exposed to dangers such as predators.  Meanwhile, macaws start to arrive.  When the parrots are done, the macaws move in with the process taking all morning.  It was fascinating and very busy the day we were there.  At one point I counted 71 macaws (scarlet and red and green varieties) and maybe

there was 200 in total that morning.  The parrot and parakeet numbers were beyond counting.  The macaws are probably the most beautiful birds I have ever seen so having so many in view at one time was outstanding.  The tapir lick is quite different.  The tapirs (a strange prehistoric-looking beast that is the largest mammal in South America) come out at night to their ground lick and people go to the blind above the lick before it gets dark.  There you remain quiet lying on mattresses under mosquito nets.  I slept most of the 6+ hours that we were there.  Falling asleep is very easy given that you are surrounded by dark woods with humming insect sounds filling the airwaves.  Plus you have been awake since 5:00 AM!  Luckily, guides stay awake waiting and they got us up when we were visited by two separate tapirs.  They are one of the strangest animals I have seen.  While the birds are clueless that were at their lick, I don’t think the same is true of the tapirs and I was a little concerned that our intrusion has an effect on their lives.  We know there are a lot of tapirs in the area around the lodge based on how often we found tracks, but they are rarely seen away from the lick.  We were out on an oxbow lake looking unsuccessfully for otters, but filling almost every minute with new bird sightings.  The birds were unbelievably numerous and exotic.  My favorite was a turquoise colored medium sized bird that was in a tree and unfortunately I forget its name.  The next best were the common hoatzins (“watsons”) which are very exotic with blue face, red eyes and very fancy feathers and three stomachs. 

It did rain a bit over the first three days, but it always picked a time when it did not interfere with our activities.  Don and Robyn from Ohio, myself and our guide, Fiorella, managed to move around these rains with little concern.  In the back of my mind, I was a little worried about what was happening with the runway which was a grass field, but Fiorella assurred me that this was normal rain in the dry season.  I liked Fiorella a lot as a guide, but I would learn over the next couple of days that her talents with customer service and such matters do not match up.  I blame her company more than her, though.  The others that flew in with us and spent the first two days at another site joined us on day three and reported that they has seen rain and lots of mosquitos (we had not).  On the fourth day, it was raining hard and our plans were pretty much ruined for the day.  It was a cold rain that started the night before and it keeps the animals hidden away so viewing is worthless… and wet and cold.  My concern was escalated even higher, but the staff was not concerned.  I just knew things had to go right for me to get to Cusco the next morning and catch my afternoon flight to Lima so I could fly out early the next day. 

Late in the day we were told that we would leave the next morning at 8:30 AM rather than 6:00 AM via boat to the airstrip and then fly away.  At 6:30 PM we were told that they had good news and bad news for us.  First, there would be no flight the next day and, second, we would not arrive in Cusco until 11:00 PM.  We asked Fiorella what was the good news since this was bad and worse news.  It meant I would not be getting to Lima, I would forfeit my pre-paid room, I would miss my flight home and since I has used frequent flyer miles for that flight for business and first class seats, I would also be flushing a lot of mileage down the drain.  I am writing this now in economy class right behind business class after drinking horrible coffee and eating a horrible breakfast while watching them eat and drink in luxury.  Uggh!  This is when things with Inkanatura started to go downhill real quick…

We were told that the plane needed to be serviced in Lima and could not make it so they wanted to put us on a boat for seven hours to travel upriver where a vehicle would meet us and take us to Cusco on a ten hour journey.  I was not happy because it would take seventeen hours, it involved a bus going over the Andes on muddy roads and it is a road where buses have been robbed over the last few months.  This is one of the reasons I chose Manu Wildlife Center so I could fly.  I told them that getting me to Cusco at 11 PM was worthless for me and I would rather do another option.  The other options that I suggested included staying at the lodge for more days or taking a boat the same distance to Puerto Maldonado where I could catch a plane straight to Lima skipping Cusco.  They were no interested in supporting different solutions and insisted that all nine of us take the same route out.  I gave them my two flight details and my hotel reservation which they tried to radio back to Cusco with no luck until the following morning.  I had hoped they would be able to change everything so that I did not lose out, but that was not possible when they decided not to support us in Cusco that night.  I woke up the next morning knowing that a horrible day was ahead.

It started off bad when we were told by the other group that they were told we would not make it back until 1:00 AM and the reason they were given for the non-flight was that the runway was too muddy.  It’s not good when two groups are given different information for the same issue and now we were all very suspect about anything they told us.  We met the boat at 6:00 AM and I was surprised to find seven workers and a small child staying aboard plus all of their things.  We soon learned we were giving them rides.  The two guides also insisted on coming with us.  Instead of two people manning the boat and one representative plus the nine of us, we had a boat full of nineteen people.  Most of the extras were piled in the back because the boat only has fourteen seats.  We got on the boat and asked for the sides to be pulled down so we could stay dry over the next seven hours.  No, that could not be done because it would block the driver’s view.  Why are there sides if they can’t be used?  It became clear real quick that the boat could not go very fast because of the weight and they told us they were surprised that we weighed so much.  Why they did not take a second boat which would have been much safer is beyond me other than a purely cost basis.

 When we got to Boca Manu in three hours knowing it was only a two hour journey, we knew that the boat ride was going to take ten or more hours and not seven.  Of course, the Peruvians insisted that would not be true.  As I have learned throughout Latin America, people are clueless here about real time.  I call it the 40% Factor.  Basically, I always add 40% more than what anyone says and that usually comes in closer than their ridiculously optimistic, one might say fantasy, numbers.  We reached an area where the river was now shallow and steeper and they had to change props to accomodate this.  We now had a slower prop puching us uphill.  At one point, the boat could not proceed without all of us getting out and walking through water until it cleared the rapids.  Now I had very wet feet.  The shoes that I kept dry during my stay were now wet and cold.  We got more pissed off with the situation as time went on and we wondered whether we would make by nightfall and how long the bus ride would really take.  Books told us 10-12 hours and, of course, with a bus and mud we knew twelve hours would be best case even with the guides keeping to their 1:00 AM followed by 3:00 AM predictions.  The same books told us Manu has this problem all of the time with planes that don’t arrive so I was not pleased to know that a normal situation just goes on and they don’t have a good solution.  I was livid when a wave came up over the side and drenched me.  I had no other dry clothes and I knew things would get miserable going over the 4000 meter Andes.  We were fed lunch and we stocked up on some snacks, but of course Inkanatura did not bring coffee or blankets or any other comforts.  I guess I can be thankful for the padded seats and life jackets.

We made it to a town right before nightfall.  Thankfully, we had no real problems on the river because I seriously doubt they had any plan on what to do if it became dark.  I would say they were reckless and we were all extremely lucky despite their stupidity.  Other than the guides, the worker passengers vacated our group in town.  No crazy ride to Cusco for them.  Glad we were able to provide them a taxi service.  By the way, at no time during this mess did (nor has) Inkanatura considered refunding our previously paid return flight to Cusco.  I guess they think the boat and bus are equivalent and it is OK for them to pocket the difference in cost.  The bus that met us was huge.  The bus driver told us the roads were a mess.  We did not leave until 6:00 PM so we knew that we would not get to Cusco until 6:00 AM yet the guides insisted 3:00 AM would be worst case.  We stopped listening to their idiocy with time estimates.  They told us it would be a half hour to the next town where they would phone the office and get updates on our travel arrangements.  (By the way, if this stupid story is boring, I cannot blame you for skipping it.  I am writing this so anyone searching the internet for information on Inkanatura and Manu Wildlife Center will get a complete picture about what to expect for all their dollars.  I can only hope this costs Inkanatura more money than I feel they cost me.  And I only do this because of how things played out.)  The trip to the next town was hair-raiser and it took 70 minutes or more than double the estimate.  Not a good start.  Fiorella called the office and had good (!?!) news in that they had booked me a hotel in Cusco, I would get sleep and then take a new flight and they had worked something with American Airlines.  I told her I did not need a hotel in Cusco because we would not be arriving until morning and they should just take us to the airport and meet us there with luggage.  That was ignored and I felt like I was talking to a wall similar to the night before when I inquired about alternative plans than the seventeen hour plan that would not help me. 

So, off we went.  And I would say it was the worst drive of my life.  We got stuck.  We had a flat.  We stopped at their other lodge in the cold mountains after 9:00 PM for dinner which had been promised when we got to the bus and they charged people for beer and other drinks.  The gall!  Off we went again.  I tried to sleep and I believe I hallucinated a few times.  We had to back up numerous times for other vehicles and to maneuver the obese bus around landslides and holes.  The more the bus bounced and got colder as we went uphill the worse my sleep got.  At one point, I was imagining us approaching Sonoma County and Robyn said she was getting off in Windsor.  I was excited and said I was getting off in the town prior, Santa Rosa.  I was then looking out the front of the bus as it was doing something terribly frightening and I came to.  The reality that I was on a crazy bus in the Peruvian Andes and not approaching Santa Rosa came flying into my face and I nearly went crazy.  Similar things happened and I can only think it was due to very light sleep, very tired mind, freezing, wet and the constant battering over so many hours.  Plus, I really am in need of some rest from travel!!!  Whenever I looked out the windows into the darkness, I became scared of the craziness going on.  Thankfully, we had two professionals at the wheel and they kept that bus moving forward without killing us.  Thankfully, they were not the drunk morons of bus drivers for which Peru is all too well known.

Daybreak came with us perched over the Sacred Valley.  One of the guides insisted again that we were only 45 minutes from Cusco.  I was livid (I don’t think I was not livid the whole time so I guess I was more livid!) because I knew how far we were from there and what our route would be and it was easily over an hour.  Forty-five minutes from when we hit paved road, but we were still above the valley and it would take a while to wind down to that paved road.  The 40% Factor once again and I would have thought she would shut up about time by now.  We finally made it to the airport around 7:00 AM – TWENTY-FIVE HOURS AFTER LEAVING THE LODGE!!!!!!!!!!  Let’s do the math…. seventeen hours + 40% (6.8 hours) is 23.8 hours and that is pretty damn close to the almost twenty-five hours that it really took.  So, if there is something I can teach you about Latin America, add 40% to all time estimates and hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised sometimes!  And, of course, my hotel room in Cusco was unneeded.  I can only hope that Inkanatura was stuck paying for it since they booked it and expected me to pay for it when I never requested it in the first place.  Why ask the customer what they want to do and why do something kind money-wise for the customer?

I went to the LAN Airlines desk right away to see what flight I was on.  They said they had no record and put me on an 11:20 flight and charged me $10.  I thought this was odd since Inkanatura said they took care of the change.  Finally, my bags arrived and I learned that they had made the change.  And they actually paid for the $10 change.  Wow!  Things were looking brighter by the moment.  They told me they handled the change with American Airlines and I was wait-listed for business class.  They got me another night’s stay in Lima.  A driver would be waiting for me in Lima and he would have the information.  They wanted to help me with my bags for the five meters to the LAN desk and I just wanted them to leave me alone.  I got to Lima and sure enough there was a driver waiting.  Yes!  Does he have my American Airlines information?  No.  Does he have my hotel voucher?  No.  I dealt with American and they said they had no change request processed.  I do not know what Inkanatura did for me.  They confirmed me for the next day and did wait-list me (since I am in economy class, you know where that went).  Off we went to the hotel.  The hotel asked me for the voucher.  I did not have one, but they were kind to let me get the room since they knew the travel company would be good for it.  I knew something was not right, but was happy for the room.  The hotel would not refund me the money I lost for the night before and I was too tired to question them about whether they had been booked and turning potential guests away.  I just wanted food and rest.

I thought Inkanatura was out of my life for good.  But they called asking for my credit card number so they could debit it for the hotel.  I told them to send over the voucher and then I would pay them.  I was not real pleased that they were not picking up the tab and had made the reservation without asking about what I wanted to do.  Frankly, I would have taken the American night flight (which was open according to AA) and not done the hotel room if I had been presented the options.  But I was more concerned that I had already given the hotel my credit card and now Inkanatura wanted it, too, without being square with the hotel.  I stuck to my guns and said there would be no credit card unless they provided the voucher.  I then offered another solution – have the hotel call me and tell me that they would charge me the agreed amount directly and leave Inkanatura out of it or have them call and confirm that they are not charging me.  Good, I thought, but the woman kept going on so I hung up.  The hotel called me and told me that thet reservation for my room had been canceled and I needed to pay the full amount.  I went berserk since that full amount was way more than I could have paid and did pay hrough the internet.  The hotel was quite nice about it after hearing my story and they told me Inkanatura could go to hell and they would allow me to stay in the room and just bill Inkanatura for it.  And since Inkanatura failed to follow the right procedure (proof via voucher) I had the upper hand in the matter.  I agreed, thanked them and told them I would even pay Inkanatura for the agreed upon amount if they turn their crappy service around and contact me again.  I’m not sure what will happen, but I will be looking at charges for a few weeks to make sure Inkanatura doesn’t try something.  As far as I am concerned, shit happens when it comes to problems, but Inkanatura is about as lowly as the shit goes when it comes to communication and solving problems with the guest’s well-being first.  Even with the hotel bill, the extra box lunch and dinner, the $10 to LAN and the cost of the too-small boat and too-big bus, I figure they still made money not having us fly back to Cusco.  And they want more money?  Go figure that one out.  All I can say is that no matter how nice Manu Wildlife Center sounds, pick another Amazon destination so you can avoid INKANATURA.  Either spend less money and therefore get service that matches the money spent or find another high-end lodging situation.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 2:03 am and is filed under peru, south america, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.