Lake Salvador: Manu Park Day 4

5:30 am start.  Lucky for the early night, so it was not too hard to rise for the early morning wake up call.  We were offered, and accepted the brilliant coloured sunrise for the start of the day. It's a special day for us,  as we get to venture into Cocha Salvador, home to the endangered giant otter.
Cocha Salvador is an oxbow shaped lake. It is one of the few places in the world where visitors can easily see a resident family of giant otter in the wild.
The whole team of travellers and guides, all 16 of us were assembled. We walked along the track to the lake to board a raft constructed of two canoes with a platform with bench seats acting as a deck. We took it in turns to paddle. This morning we were in pursuit of the rare giant otter.
Birds were plentiful and we saw the odd black caiman. I was sceptical that we’d see the otter due to the difficulty of spotting anything. 
However, we were rewarded. 
 
A family was out foraging and playing. The giant otters were  lovable amphibious animals, in the quiet waters we were captivated. Apparently there only a few left in the world – maybe 60, so we we were privileged with  the sighting of this family.
After our paddle we head back for breakfast. At breakfast , Phil, my fellow pisco sour drinker last night related to me how he  found it difficult to locate his cabin in darkness last night and ended up in another camp. (Note to self: must remember to stop drinking pisco sours.) Thanks to the guidance of staff he managed to get to the correct one. A good torch and a level of sobriety is a requirement at night, Phil lacked both.
We had juice from the cocona fruit , native to the area. It was quite tasty, like a lemony tomato . We also fruit, yoghurt and a granola cereal tasting and of consistency similar to puffed wheat at home.
The morning’s activity involved a visit to a native village resort by boat and option to walk back. I wanted to walk there instead to have a more private time. A guide – David and another guy – Dirak came with me. Dirak is an interesting guy. His career is to help out with troubled persons and families to assist in taking the right path in life.  He is from Germany and is on a six month motor cycle trip travelling a few countries in South America.
Our trip to the native resort was circuitous as David had never done the walk in reverse and had trouble finding the way. We were rewarded with a pleasant walk and saw monkeys, heard many birds and  found the poisonous frog under a log used on arrows by the natives. 
The one we saw was a poison dart frog primarily black with a lime green stripe on its back and legs. Being camera shy it jumped away for the photo shoot. Here is a picture of one from the World Wild Life fund:
We met the other tourists close to the indian resort, they all had elected to walk back as we arrived so I was glad to have the more personal experience. The indian resort has promise when it opens for tourism. I am glad that they are keeping the main village away from tourists and will only have a family or two at times to show the culture and sell souvenirs.
We returned by boat for lunch. Lunch was a delicious meal of starch vegetables, definitely not for the dieters ! None of us need bother in that regard as exercise was a plenty on this trip with the daily walks and activity.
A local came by to show us some native foods and traditional implements for hunting etc.
No rest after lunch, we were off to see the woolly monkeys on the other side of the river. This side of the river was quite different in climate. It was hotter and more humid, quite stifling. Mosquitoes were everywhere, Tropical Rid – I am glad it works ! The monkeys  were abundant, and high up in the trees. Their sightings are exciting and make the insects and weather bearable. The monkeys move quickly and were very difficult to capture on photo.
Back at the camp, I tried to climb a tree with a vine wrapped around it. I got fairly high until fear bettered me with a compelling judgement to descend to terra firma.
I rinsed my somewhat smelly shirt, though why I do not know, as nothing ever dries here. Today was a big day and sleep came quickly. 

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Location: XQWM+RQ2 Cocha Salvador, Manu, Puerto Maldonado 17800, Peru

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