Your Journey

Day 1 - Transfer from Puerto Maldonado Airport to the Tambopata River Port by boat (2.5 hours)

Settle into your room at the lodge. After dinner, set out on a Caiman search at the river’s edge, scanning the shores with headlamps and flashlights to catch the red gleams of reflection from caiman eyes.

Day 2

Visit Oxbow Lake and take a canoe or catamaran trip looking for lakeside wildlife such as hoatzin, caiman, horned screamers, and otters which are can sometimes be seen here plus overhead sightings of macaws.
Walk through the jungle to a 25m canopy tower where you can view the continuous primary forest from a platform high up. Sightings of mixed species canopy flocks as well as toucans, macaws and raptors are likely.
In the afternoon visit a local farm to see a variety of popular and unknown Amazon crops. Just about every plant and tree you see serves a purpose.
In the evening attend a lecture by lodge staff covering conservation threats, opportunities and projects in the Tambopata National Reserve.

Day 3

A 15 minute boat ride and one hour walk from Refugio Amazonas is a clay lick used both by parrots and parakeets. From a hide observe parrots and parakeets such as Dusky Headed and Cobalt Winged Parakeet which land on most clear days to ingest the clay on a bank.
In the afternoon, a short distance from the lodge is a beautiful, old patch of Brazil Nut forest that has been harvested for decades (if not centuries). Learn the whole process of the rain forest's only sustainably harvested product from collection through transportation to drying.
A short distance away is a peccary clay lick where wild rainforest pigs may show up in herds of five to 20 to eat clay. Chances of spotting them are around 15%, but other wildlife may show up including deer, guan and parakeets.
After dinner you have the option of hiking out at night, when most of the mammals are active but difficult to see. Easier to find are frogs with shapes and sounds as bizarre as their natural histories.

Day 4

After breakfast transfer back to Puerto Maldonado Airport (2.5 hours) by boat for your afternoon flight.

Optional trip ex Ecuador after Galapagos tour:

Ecuador: Amazon Expeditions

Iquitos Jungle Lodge - 4 Days / 3 Nights

Day 1

You will be met at Iquitos Airport and transferred to the pier for a speedboat transfer (approx 4 hours) up the Amazon River, then the Tahuayo tributary to Amazonia Expeditions Lodge. Accommodation is in private cabins, most with ensuite bathrooms, in a beautiful, remote, jungle setting on the river.

Days 2 & 3

Guided excursions in and around the Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo Reserve include:

• Viewing wildlife and primary forest from canopy platforms;
• Zip lines
• Walks with naturalist guides into varzea forest with good chances of seeing pygmy marmosets, owl monkeys, yellow-crowned brush tailed rates, wire-tailed manakins, barber bees. Also possible to see black tamarins, saddle-backed tamarins, trogons.
• Canoe trips into Tahuampa forest (flooded forest) and motorboat trips, one to Lake Charo to see pink dolphins
• Fishing for piranha.
• Visit the native village of El Chino. Visit an artisan cooperative, visit a shaman, the farm or school.
• Night excursions to spot wildlife

Day 4

Depart the lodge after your morning excursion by boat to return to Iquitos.