Arrival & Reception by Rainforest Expeditions Guide. Our guides are
biologists, tourism professionals, or community members. Unless noted
otherwise, our guides speak English. We assign guides at 10:1 ratio. This
means groups smaller than 10 people will be merged with other groups under
one guide. If you would like a private guide or a guide in a language other
than English please let us know.
Transfer Airport to Puerto Maldonado Headquarters. Upon arrival from Lima or
Cuzco, we will welcome you at the airport and drive you ten minutes to our
Puerto Maldonado headquarters. While enjoying your first taste of the forest
in our gardens we will ask you to pack only the necessary gear for your next
few days, and leave the rest at our safe deposit. This helps us keep the
boats and cargo light.
Puerto Maldonado to Tambopata River Port. Skirting Puerto Maldonado, we
drive 20 kilometers to the Tambopata River Port, entering the Native
Community of Infierno. The port is a communal business.
Tambopata River Port to Refugio Amazonas. The two and a half hour boat ride
from the Tambopata Port to Refugio Amazonas will take us past the Community
of Infierno and the
Tambopata
Reserved Area checkpoint and into the
buffer zone of this 1.3 million hectare conservation unit.
Boxed Lunch.
Orientation. Upon arrival, the lodge manager will welcome you and brief you
with important navigation and security tips.
Dinner.
Caiman searches. We will be out at the river’s edge at night, scanning the
shores with headlamps and flashlights to catch the red gleams of reflection
from caiman eyes.
Overnight in Refguio Amazonas.
DAY 2: REFUGIO AMAZONAS (B-L-D)
Breakfast.
Sachavacayoc Oxbow Lake: A two hour hike takes you to Sachavacayoc Lake.
You will then paddle around the lake in a catamaran, searching for the
resident family of five giant river otters (seen by about 30% of lake
visitors) and other lakeside wildlife such as caiman, hoatzin and horned
screamers. We hike out at dawn - when otters are active. Don’t forget the
two hour return hike! For those who do not want to take the long hike
Condenado Lake, thirty minutes from the lodge, is an option.
Lunch.
Farm Visit and Ethno-botanical Garden: Five minutes downriver from the
lodge lies a farm owned and managed by charismatic Don Manuel from the
neighboring community of Condenado. He grows a variety of popular and
unknown Amazon crops - just about every plant and tree you see serves a
purpose. He has also identified and cultivated many of the medicinal plants
used in the region in a little backyard garden.
Brazil nut trail and camp: A few minutes hike from the lodge is a beautiful
old growth patch of Brazil Nut forest that has been harvested for decades
(if not centuries) where the precarious remains of a camp used two months a
year by Brazil Nut gatherers can still be experienced. We will be
demonstrating the whole process of the rain forest's only sustainable
harvested product from collection through transportation to drying.
Dinner.
Night walk. You will have the option of hiking out at night, when most
of the mammals are active but rarely seen. Much easier to find are frogs
with shapes and sounds as bizarre as their natural histories.
After an early breakfast we depart, fifteen minutes from
Refugio Amazonico by boat and a 30 minute walk take us to the lake shore.
From here we take a long, easy canoe ride around it. We will look for giant
river otters, turtles, hoatzin, and wading birds. The giant river otters
that are seen in Tres Chimbadas belong to a resident family of nine. As we
approach noon, animal activity decreases, and tropical sunlight makes it
irresistible to take a swim on the lake, so pack your swimsuit.
Boxed lunch on the boat.
We will arrive at Tambopata Research Center in the early afternoon, being greeted by the Chicos, our flock of semi-wild, rescued macaws.
On arrival, we will hold an orientation session.
After this we will hike the 1.5 mile Bamboo Trail, a trail that is famous for the abundance of rare birds that live exclusively in this habitat and are endemic to southern Peru. It is also the home of the frequently found Howler and Dusky titi monkeys. As we birdwatch our way through the trail we will end our hike at the overlooks which are good places to observe canopy birds like tanagers, jacamars, elaenias, guans, and oropendolas.
We will return to TRC for dinner.
After dinner, to cap off a fulfilling day we can have a frog walk through the forest, allowing the photo lovers to take incredibly beautiful macro shoots of american bullfrogs, horned frogs, tree frogs and an incredible variety of colorful insects.
Breakfast, Lunch, Diner.
DAY 4: TAMBOPATA RESEARCH CENTER (B-L-D)
At dawn we will cross the river and enjoy the world's largest macaw clay lick where hundreds of parrots and macaws of up to 15 species congregate daily. The January 1994 issue of National Geographic features an article on Tambopata Research Center and the Tambopata Macaw Project. It begins with a description of the daily spectacle at the clay lick:
"When the morning sun clears the Amazon tree line in southeastern Peru and strikes a gray-pink clay bank on the upper Tambopata River, one of the world's most dazzling wildlife gatherings is nearing its riotous peak. The steep bank has become a pulsing, 130-foot-high palette of red, blue, yellow and green as more than a thousand parrots squabble over choice perches to grab a beakful of clay, a vital but mysterious part of their diet. More than a dozen parrot species will visit the clay lick throughout the day, but this midmorning crush belongs to the giants of the parrot world, the macaws".
You can expect to see ten to twelve of the following members of the parrot family: Red-and-green, Blue-and-gold, Scarlet, Red-bellied, Chestnut-fronted and Blue-headed Macaws; Mealy and Yellow-crowned Amazons; Blue-headed, Orange-cheeked and White-bellied Parrots; Dusky-headed, White-eyed, Cobalt-winged and Tui Parakeets and Dusky-billed Parrotlets. This show will continue until the macaws sense danger, usually in the form of an eagle, and depart simultaneously in an explosion of sound and color. Around mid-morning, when the most intense clay lick activity is over for the day, we will return to TRC for breakfast..
After breakfast we will hike the 1.5 mile Ocelot Trail, a trail which exemplifies the quintessential rainforest. Although at this time of day mammals and birds are not as active as in the early morning, we will concentrate on the forest itself and discuss general rain forest ecology. This forest, which is estimated to be 200 to 300 years old and includes truly huge Ceiba trees and Strangler figs is home to several mammals that are
occasionally encountered: Saddleback tamarins, Squirrel and Brown Capuchin Monkeys and Collared peccary. This trail is the one which most often sports ocelot, puma and jaguar tracks, although any one of these three large cats is extremely difficult to spot.
We will return to TRC for lunch and then embark on a 2 mile hike to the palm swamp, a nesting colony and preferred roost for Blue and Gold and Red-bellied Macaws. Although there are different degrees of macaw activity at the swamp year round, the most exciting time to visit it is from October to March, during the nesting season, when macaws will land on the nests and stand there for several minutes, interacting with other individuals at less then 20 feet from our observation tower. The scenes at the swamp, especially with late afternoon sun in our backs, make prized photo opportunities.
After a lazy afternoon with the macaws we will hike back to the lodge for dinner.
DAY 5: TAMBOPATA RESEARCH CENTER / REFUGIO AMAZONAS
(B-L-D)
We will wake up at dawn once again to visit the macaw
clay lick and then return for breakfast.
After breakfast we will take a short five minute boat
ride to a small, drying oxbow lake where we will spend the morning on a
platform in the middle of the pond observing some of its birdlife, which may
include hoatzin, duck, ibis, woodpeckers, chachalaca, parakeets, oropendolas
and numerous flycatcher species.
We will return to TRC for lunch, after which we embark to
Refugio Amazonas, arriving at mid-afternoon.
We will spend our last night in the rain forest in this
wonderfully designed lodge, pondering over the exciting happenings of the
past few days.
DAY 6: REFUGIO AMAZONAS / PUERTO MALDONADO / .... (B)
Breakfast.
After an early breakfast we will return to Puerto Maldonado for our flight back to
Lima or Cuzco.