'Green Peru' draws world's nature lovers

"Hey, no loud snoring," quipped Fiorella Caleni, our guide. We lay on raised mattresses set out under mosquito netting in the humid heat and waited as it got dark. Munching sandwiches, we whispered to each other, watched as bright fireflies zipped by and listened to a loud chorus of tree frogs.

A hundred feet away was our target of interest: a muddy wallow the size of a large hot tub, where tapirs, the largest mammal in the Peruvian rain forest, often come to munch at mineral-rich clay. Getting to see this shy herbivore in its natural element is by no means a sure thing. Some evenings they show up, other times they do not. This was our last night in the jungle; there would be no second chance.

Tapir viewing was just one of the attractions that had brought us to the Madre de Dios ("Mother of God") River, which meanders hundreds of miles through sparsely populated low-elevation terrain on the east side of the Andes. It is one of the world's least-spoiled and most nature-rich regions, with no roads.

Our group of seven flew in an unpressurized large Cessna 16,000 feet over the mountains from Cuzco to a grass landing strip carved out of trackless green foliage that looked from above like a sea of broccoli. A two-hour motorized canoe ride took us down the river, past one or two tiny Indian villages, to the Manu Wildlife Center.

The small outpost is run by InkaNatura, an eco-tourism company owned by Peru Verde, or "Green Peru," a nonprofit organization akin to the Nature Conservancy. Revenues from hosting foreign nature buffs go to buying and protecting land from logging, poaching and other threats to wildlife, and the center provides employment for at least a dozen local Indians.

Viewing macaws at dawn

There was a central dining hall, which served good meals and was lit at night by a generator, and 20 small sleeping quarters. We settled into our individual thatched huts, each screened against the bugs and equipped with a shower but with only candles for lighting. Not that there was much time to read, given the intense daily program.

Another day, the boat took us to a placid lake, which once had been part of the main river. Two young Indians paddled us around in silence on a small catamaran to watch and photograph the herons, egrets, turtles and howler monkeys. We were alerted to watch for giant otters that frequent the lake, but never saw them. We were able to sneak up close to several alligatorlike caimans, which lay just below the surface like half-sunken logs, with only their tails and unblinking eyes showing.

At night, wildlife appears

Later, we climbed 144 steps up a steel tower to the top of a gigantic kapok tree to view life in the jungle canopy and listen to the nonstop buzz of birds and insects. On one after-dinner forest hike with flashlights, biologist and guide Guillermo Knell, who spoke flawless English and could identify hundreds of species, kept watch for poisonous snakes and pointed out distinctive spiders, caterpillars and nesting birds that could be spotted only after dark. It was a rich and inspiring experience, even for someone who is not a serious birder or amateur naturalist.

And then, our last night, we hunkered down on mattresses in the raised blind near the tapir lick and waited, hoping to see the elusive critter. We waited. And waited. After five hours of patient boredom, most of us resigned ourselves to disappointment and decided to call it quits. A smaller group chose to stay on. My group packed up silently and tiptoed along a boardwalk to where we had left our boots. Just as we were lacing up, one of the stay-behinds came running to tell us that the tapir had suddenly appeared.

I hustled back and there it was, etched sharply in the red glow of a night-vision spotlight. The strangest-looking beast I had ever seen, it looked like a cross between a small hippopotamus and a large anteater. It poked its drooping snout into the wet hillside of clay, slurping and gulping the essential nutrients while we watched, transfixed, through binoculars.

With quiet satisfaction, we packed up again and set off on the hourlong walk, by flashlight, back to the lodge.

Travel writer Tom Koppel lives in British Columbia.