Visit: June 2019. Manu NP can (only) be reached by joining a tour from Cusco. I went on a 5 days tour to the Cultural Zone and focus on the different tours.

 

Zona Cultural vs Zona Reservada

Manu NP is huge, but only a relatively small part can be accessed. If you want to spend your tour mostly in the core zone, you need to book a trip to the reserved zone. The shortest tour I found was 6 days. The 5 days reserved zone tour Els did is no longer offered, as it was not profitable. Tours to the reserved zone include on each way an 8 hours bus ride to Atalaya port (half of the road unpaved) followed by an 8 hours boat ride to Boca a Manu, the entry point to the reserved zone. The flights to Boca a Manu are no longer available since 2012, so no short cuts possible at the moment. This also means that out of 6 days you will be using 3 just to get there and back. From what I heard animal sightings in the reserved zone are far more common. There are lodges inside the reserved zone, so you don’t have to sleep in a tent.

The cultural zone can be done in 3, 4 or 5 days tours. Driving from Cusco to Atalaya you will actually cross the core zone several times at the south western tip of the park (from where my picture is). This zone is in the highlands (around 4000m). the problem is, that it is not really the zone you would expect, when thinking of Manu. We did a walking tour within the core zone, around a small lake. Later you enter the cloud forest, also partially in the core zone. There we did another walking tour, spotting some wild live such as monkeys and even Peru’s national bird, the Cock of the Rock. We spent 3 of 4 nights in a jungle lodge in the cultural zone. The lodge is in the jungle strip, between the river and Manu NP. There is probably not much difference between this jungle and the jungle in the core zone a few kilometres away. It is thick virgin forest with all the animals you can expect in Manu (Jaguars, Pumas, Tapirs, etc). The difference is, that there are villages nearby on the other side of the river and that it is not in the core zone. Due to the proximity of humans, the animals are much shyer and hide even better. How many animals you see also depends on the guide. I had both a rather unmotivated and a highly motivated guide and the latter makes the experience so much better. We did daily walks in the jungle and managed to see frogs, lots of spiders, monkeys and an armadillo. Further, the whole area has a huge variety of birds. I quite enjoyed these walks and was happy with the quantity of animals I saw. I just wished I was in the core zone. It was rather a nice jungle trip and not visiting a WHS. If you don’t want to spend too much time and money, I highly recommend a trip to the cultural zone. It will be a good experience anyways. If you are only in for the tick, you can even book a 3 days tour. You won’t see much of the jungle, but you will enter the core zone in the mountains, so it will count. I would also like to give a shout out to the cook. Food was excellent during the whole trip.

 

Booking a tour

I want to prevent you from making the worst mistake I made: don’t book online! There are relatively few companies executing trips to cultural and reserved zone. But there are countless small travel agencies in Cusco selling them. They compete with each other and you can bargain. Basically it doesn’t matter too much who you travel with. They all have the same activities in the cultural zone (jungle wals, visit a lake, hot springs) or the reserved zone (oxbow lakes). Prices online range between (only) USD 100 more till absolute fantasy prices. Here is the price range for the tour I did (5 days cultural zone): I booked online with Macaw Adventures and payed USD 450. Pantiacolla, the operator Els suggested, asked for a whooping USD 815. The people I met in the lodge, all paid different amounts for different packages. USD 250 for 4 days, USD 180 for 3 days, etc. Basically there are just some buses going there and you can be mixed up with others with more or less the same package. Sold out seemed not to be a problem in June. Rather not enough people. If you want to do the reserved zone I have no idea what a good price is. The offers from the companies I contacted were USD 810 for 6 days by Macaw adventure and USD 1550 for 7 days by Pantiacolla. If you don’t book ahead, of course you run the risk not to travel on your desired date. But if you do, you can be sure that you will be overcharged.

 

I might go back and visit the reserved zone, but not before they reinstalled the flights to Boca a Manu. The idea to travel 40mins instead of 1.5 days sounds like something to wait for.