The Student Shelter Chaskawasi Manu, derives its name form the Quechua word meaning Home of the Stars. It is located in the village of Salvation, in the Cultural Zone of the Biosphere Reserve of Manu in Cusco, Peru.

The largest reserve of tropical rainforest in the world is located in the end of the upper Amazon in a remote region of southeastern Peru, just a 160 km. from the spectacular Inca ruins of Machu Picchu.

Manu is unique because it comprises three perfectly distinct ecosystems:

• The Puna, high altitude area and scarce vegetation, similar to the tundra, where a type of yellow grass called “ichu”, grows, it is dotted with deep blue lakes and populated with llamas with bright ear ornaments.

• The cloud forest, is a world of mystery, permanently immersed in dense fog and inhabited by the cock of the rock bird with its striking red color, spectacled bears and endless giant ferns.

• The tropical lower rainforest, home to the giant black caiman, the giant otter, thirteen monkey species and more than a thousand species of birds (10% of all the world’s species). Despite the invasions suffered, first by the Incas and later by Spanish conquistadors and Victorian rubber tappers, the Biosphere Reserve of Manu has been largely protected through the centuries because of its remote location and the presence of hostile native tribes.

Four ethnic groups currently inhabit the Manu, two of them are still isolated from any contact with civilization in a protected area of 1.8 million hectares (an area half the size of Switzerland) Manu has perhaps the richest diversity of species of any protected area in the world.