The sun shone, the water gleamed, the river called and I had to go. I had been to the jungles of Southern Peru before but this was to be my first independent expedition. In the South-Eastern corner of Peru near Brazil lays the largest untouched piece of pristine jungle left on planet Earth: Manu. It is part of the greater Amazon region but is unique in its biodiversity.

Lorene is a French woman in her mid-thirties. She is tough as nails and smelled slightly of brie after weeks in the hot jungle. She is trained in biology and fluent in three languages, including the one that could be of use to the expedition, Spanish. I myself only spoke a few words in Spanish at the time so her translation skills were crucial to the group. We started our adventure from the ancient Inca capital of Cusco, long since taken over by the Spanish Conquistadors in the fifteen-hundreds. Leaving out of Cusco we traversed the high Andes in a bus for eight hours and then plunged down into the depths of the Amazonian rain forest.

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