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A large forested region, with a manic climate (usually searingly hot and humid, but with sudden cold spells - friajes - between June and August, due to icy winds coming down from the Andean glaciers), the southern jungle has only been systematically explored since the 1950s and was largely unknown until the twentieth century, when rubber began to leave Peru through Bolivia and Brazil, eastwards along the rivers. Named after the broad river that flows through the heart of the southern jungle, the still relatively wild departmento of Madre de Dios , like so many remote areas of Peru, is changing rapidly. One of the last places affected by the rubber boom at the turn of the century, the natives here - many of whom struggle to maintain their traditional ways of life, despite the continuing efforts of colonos and some of the less enlightened Christian missionaries - were left pretty much alone until the push for oil in the 1960s and 1970s brought roads and planes, making this now the most accessible part of the Peruvian rainforest. As the oil companies moved out, so prospectors took their place, panning for gold dust along the river banks, while agribusiness moved in to clear mahogany trees or harvest the bountiful Brazil nuts. Today the main problems facing the Indians are loss of territory, the merciless pollution of their rivers, devastating environmental destruction (caused mainly by large scale gold-mining), and new waves of oil exploration by multinationals. Nearly half of Madre de Dios departmento 's 78,000 square kilometres are accounted for by national parks and protected areas such as Manu Biosphere Reserve and Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Zone , between them encompassing some of the most exciting jungle and richest flora and fauna in the world. The latest, Bahuaja-Sonone National Park , created in 1996, is surrounded largely by a massive rainforest area formed by the Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Zone confirming the Peruvian government's support for this region as an ecological treasure. Taken together, these comprise some 1.5 million hectares, almost the size of Manu (15,000 square kilometres), and if you add on the Maididi National Park - just across the border in Bolivia - the protected area in this corner of the Amazon exceeds 50,000 square kilometres. The Rio Madre de Dios is fed by two main tributaries, the Rio Manu and the Rio Alto Madre de Dios , which roll off the Paucartambo Ridge (just north of Cusco), which divides the tributaries from the Rio Urubamba watershed and delineates Manu Biosphere Reserve. At Puerto Maldonado, the Madre de Dios meets with the Rio Tambopata and the Rio de las Piedras , then flows on to Puerto Heath, a day's boatride away on the Bolivian frontier. From here it continues through the Bolivian forest into Brazil to join the great Rio Madeira, which eventually meets the Amazon near Manaus. Madre de Dios is still very much a frontier zone, centred on the rapidly growing river town of Puerto Maldonado , near the Bolivian border, supposedly founded by legendary explorer and rubber baron Fitzcarrald . The town extends a tenuous political and economic hold over the vast departmento, and has a population of over 25,000, a city centre with one or two traffic policemen, and evening classes where row upon row of young locals train for the future in front of the glare of PC monitors. But while the departmento 's scattered towns and villages are interesting for their Wild West energy and spirit, most visitors come for the wildlife, especially in the strictly protected Manu Biosphere Reserve - still essentially an expedition zone - and the cheaper, less well-known Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Zone, chiefly visited by groups staying at lodges. As in all jungle regions, human activity here is closely linked to the river system, and these two are actually among the most easily reached parts of the Amazon: from Cusco, Manu is either a day's journey by bus then a couple days more by canoe, or a thirty-minute flight in a light aircraft; Tambopata, meanwhile, is a forty-minute scheduled flight (or 3- to 10-day truck journey), plus a few hours in a motorized canoe. Slightly less accessible, but nevertheless rewarding for many budget travellers staying in Puerto Maldonado, are Lago Sandoval and the huge expanse of Lago Valencia , both great wildlife locales east along the Rio Madre de Dios and close to the Bolivian border. At the least, you're likely to spot a few caimans and the strange hoatzin birds, and if you're lucky, larger mammals such as capybara, tapir, or, less likely, a jaguar - and at Valencia, you can fish for piranha. A little further southeast of here, less than a couple of hours in a decent motorized launch, brings you to Las Pampas del Heath , the only tropical grassland within Peru. It now lies within the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park, so special permission is needed from the INRENA office to visit it. The grasslands extend eastward across northern Bolivia to the Pantanal region of Brazil, itself one of the wildlife jems of the Americas.
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