John of the Jungle

So, it turns out there is internet in the jungle. There´s also cell phone service at Machu Picchu. Just a quick update before dinner then.
Machu Picchu was amazing, though getting there involved some frustration and expense. It rained most of the time we were up there too, but no bother. I was amazed you could just walk wherever you pleased. And it really is like a city on the top of a mountain, so there is lots of wandering to do. We skipped scaling the highest point on account of the rain, but managed to see all the significant buildings and centres. It´s really an indescribable site, so I´ll leave it at that for now.
We were home to Cusco late and up early to get our jungle bound bus this morning. There are four Spaniards and an Irish woman in addition to us, our guide William and our (medium-mad) driver today Americo.
The first couple hours involved some now customary terrifying high speed rides around mountain switchbacks. We stopped at a pre Inca burial site where we were swarmed by girls selling trinkets and carried on to Manu national park.
The drive through the clouds was a different kind of terrifying and a different kind of beautiful. There was another quick pit stop to help haul the cargo of a truck that had gone down the hill back up the embankment--the truck itself was too far gone. Driver´s okay, apparently. We stopped for lunch by a waterfall where it began to pour. Once we got into the cloudforest proper, we got out to walk for a while.
Almost right away William said he´d spotted some woolly monkeys and sure enough, there were a dozen of them swinging from tree to tree on the other side of the river. Zonkey trip people: these are the same kind of monkeys that we watched playing tag in Avon Valley.
It was incedible to watch them in their own environment. They seemed to be heading from high ground to lower, but then stopped and just kind of hung out in a tree for a while.
I don´t think the pictures will do it justice.
Not long after, one of our party spotted a Cock of the Rock, the Peruvian national bird. We descended a slippery bank to get a better spot to watch three of them sing and dance. They´re a bright pink/red colour on top with a strange crowned head.
Here´s hoping the next few days will have a lot more amazing sites.
We´re all the way down at 600 metres tonight and aiming not t get eaten by mosquitoes.
Salud.