Call Of The Wild

Nature-loving travellers are making an impact by collaborating with scientists in the field. On a visit to Peru’s rainforest, JOHN WRAY collects tiger moths by moonlight, dodges fruit bats and giant beetles, and studies the world’s most beautiful birds—all while enjoying the comforts of a simple but stylish lodge.

I WAS STUCK IN THE MUD WHEN THE WILD PIGS ARRIVED.

It wasn’t just any mud: it was Amazonian mud, in one of the wildest stretches of rainforest a boat can safely reach. I had come to the Tambopata National Reserve, over 2,500 protected square kilometres in southeastern Peru, on a visit organised by Rainforest Expeditions, a tour operator that owns and manages lodges where travellers can experience the biodiversity of the region while assisting the scientists working there. I was looking at a band-tailed manakin, a bird the size of a teacup and the colour of sunset, putting on a show for a prospective mate. It crossed my mind, as I watched the manakin displaying its plumage, that I’d never seen anything more beautiful.

Then I caught the scent of the pigs. The day before, I had travelled by plane from Lima to the rainforest city of Puerto Maldonado, where I met my guide, Silverio Duri. On the four-hour boat ride from Infierno, an indigenous settlement, to the Tambopata Research Center, the lodge where I would spend the next two nights, Silverio had cautioned me about the pigs—whitelipped peccaries, to be exact. “They’re generally harmless,” he told me, “but don’t get in the way of a herd. Their tusks are sharp as razors.”

“Razors,” I repeated, trying to sound casual. “Okay.”

“If they surround you, bonk them on the nose.”