Duration 4 days and 3
nights
Departures Daily departures
Activities Jungle excursion (see detailed program
below)
Airfares Not included, available upon request
Meals Included as specified below
Customizable YES, feel free to ask for extra services
DAY 1 ARRIVAL & RECEPTION BY GUIDE
Upon arrival from Lima or Cusco, 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.
Skirting Puerto Maldonado, we drive 20 kilometers to the Tambopata
River Port, entering the Native Community of Infierno. The port
is a communal business. 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 National Reserve´s checkpoint
and into the buffer zone of this 1.3 million hectare conservation
unit. Boxed Lunch
Upon arrival, the lodge manager will welcome you and brief you
with important navigation and security tips. Dinner
Caiman Search: 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 at Refugio Amazonas (L, D)
DAY 2 OXBOW LAKE AND FARM VISIT
Breakfast. We will paddle around the lake on a canoe or a catamaran,
looking for lakeside wildlife such as hoatzin, caiman and horned
screamers, hoping to see the otters which are infrequently seen
here. You will also be rewarded with overhead sightings of macaws.
Lunch. Five minutes downriver from the lodge lays 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.
Ethno-botanical Tour: Along this trail we will find a variety
of plants and trees that are used by the local population with
at least the same variety of purposes. We will learn about the
medicinal (and other) uses of Ajo-Sacha, Yuca de Venado, Uña
de Gato, Charcot-Sacha, Para-Para, among several others. Dinner
Tambopata National Reserve Lectures: Nightly lectures prepared
by the staff of Refugio Amazonas cover conservation threats, opportunities
and projects in the Tambopata National Reserve.
Overnight at Refugio Amazonas ( B, L, D)
DAY 3 PARROTS & MAMMAL CLAY LICK
A fifteen minute boat ride and sixty minute walk from Refugio
Amazonas is a clay lick used both by parrots and parakeets. From
a blind you will see parrots and parakeets descend on most clear
days to ingest the clay on a bank. Species such as Dusky headed
and Cobalt winged Parakeet descend at this clay lick. With luck
we will also see some or all of the following species in the early
morning rush: Mealy and Yellow-crowned Amazons, Blue-headed Pionus,
Severe macaw and Orange-cheeked (Barraband`s) Parrot. We visit
the lick at dawn, when parrots are most active or in midmorning
or early afternoon, when they are active. Breakfast
Twenty minutes walking from Refugio Amazonas is a peccary clay
lick. These wild rain forest pigs show up in herds of five to
twenty individuals to eat clay in the late morning. Chances of
spotting them are around 15%, but well worth the short hike. Other
wildlife also shows up including deer, guan and parakeets. Lunch
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 sustainably harvested product from collection
through transportation to drying.
Canopy Tower: A thirty minute walk from Refugio Amazonas leads
to the 25 meter scaffolding canopy tower. A bannistered staircase
running through the middle provides safe access to the platforms
above. The tower has been built upon high ground, therefore increasing
your horizon of the continuous primary forest extending out towards
the Tambopata National Reserve. From here views of mixed species
canopy flocks as well as toucans, macaws and raptors are likely.
Dinner
Night walk: You will 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.
Overnight at Refugio Amazonas (B, L, D)
DAY 4 TRANSFER OUT
Breakfast. Transfer Boat from Refugio Amazonas to Tambopata River
Port to go to Puerto Maldonado Headquarters
We retrace our river and road journey back to Puerto Maldonado,
our office and the airport. Depending on airline schedules, this
may require dawn departures. (B)
END OF SERVICES
Please note that the program may vary slightly so as to maximize
your wildlife sightings, depending on the reports of our researchers
and experienced naturalist guides based at the lodge.
BOAT TRANSPORTATION
All our boats are 20 foot long, roofed canoes with 55 hp outboard
motors. Daily arrivals and departures from every port are scheduled
to meet every airline´s arrival and departure with a maximum
two hour wait. |
