Madre de Dios / About

The Madre de Dios is a region in Peru on the Amazonian side of the Andes. It is named after an enormous river, the Rio Madre de Dios, which drains the whole region. The Madre de Dios collects its waters from a vast catchment area via a fan of tributaries. Some of these tributaries rise high in the Andes mountains and flow down the eastern side of the range dropping rapidly until they reach the Amazon forest. En route they tumble down a variety of ecosystems from the Alpine Mountains then the Montane, before the Cloud Forest and Finally the Amazon Rainforest.  

There are 2 main rivers which feed the Madre de Dios; namely the Alto (upper) Madre de Dios and the River Manu and they both meet at the small jungle settlement of Boca Manu. The Alto Madre de Dios has a road to its upper and middle sections as far as the village of Shintuya where it stops. From here the river continues for 100 kilometres through the remote jungle to the village of Boca Manu. The Manu River drains a vast and very remote area to the west of Boca Manu.  Up its course is arguably one of the most important and more remote national parks in the world. It is the Manu National Park and probably has the largest biodiversity of anywhere on earth. 

The Rivers of the Madre de Dios region in the Peruvian Amazon

My plan was to take a lorry to Shintuya on the Alto Madre de Dios and build a raft. Then I would float down the river for about a week to its confluence with the Manu river at Boca Manu. From here I would float down the vast Madre de Dios river to the town of Puerto Maldonado through the remote jungle. I thought this second half would take about 2 weeks. As it transpired I did go down the Alto Madre de Dios to Boca Manu but then I only floated down the Madre de Dios for a further week and not the intended two, until I got to the Colorado river. From Colorado downstream the virgin rain forest was being settled by gold miners and settlers so I took a motorised canoe down the rest of the river to Pierto Maldonado. 

The blog here is the story of my 2 week raft journey which took place in 1987. Since then the areas through which I rafted have changed slightly with the road being extended from Shintuya to Diamante. The villages of Shintuya, Itahuania, Diamanteand Boca Manu have grown considerably and the town of Colorado has swelled in  size while the town of Puerto Maldonado has virtually become a city. However Manu National Park has grown in area and has had the newly created Amarakaeri Communal Reserve attached to it, both of which remain very remote still. Between them they represent an area bigger than the size of Wales.  However the whole of the Colorado River has been totally destroyed by illegal mining operations.