Tambopata 7 Days / 6 Nights

Day 01: Amazon tour

Arrival & Guide Briefing

Our guides are tourism professionals, or community members. Unless noted otherwise, our guides speak English. We assign guides at 6:1 ratio in Refugio Amazonas. This means groups smaller than 6 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.

Airport to Puerto Maldonado Headquarters

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 we will ask you to pack only the most necessary gear for the next few days, and leave the rest in our deposit safe. This helps us keep the boats and cargo light.

Puerto Maldonado Headquarters to Tambopata River Port

Along the Puerto Maldonado, we will drive 20 kilometers to the Tambopata River Port, entering the native community of Infierno. The port is a communal business. Here we will eat a packed lunch.

Travel by Boat – 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 National Reserve’s checkpoint, and into the buffer zone with a 1.3-million-hectare conservation unit.

Orientation

Upon arrival, the lodge manager will welcome you and brief you with important navigation and security tips. We will eat dinner.

Night walk

You will have the option of hiking at night, when most of the mammals are active but difficult to see. This is a fabulous time to find frogs by using their strange shapes and sounds.

Day 02: Amzon tour

Start the day with breakfast.

Oxbow Lake Visit

We will paddle around the lake in a canoe or a catamaran, looking for lakeside wildlife such as hoatzin, caiman and horned screamers. We hope to see the otters, although normally infrequently seen here. You may also have the opportunity to see macaws overhead.

Canopy Tower

A thirty minute walk from Refugio Amazonas leads to the 25 meter scaffolding canopy tower. A banister 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, we will see mixed species around the canopy passing in flocks; toucans, macaws and raptors are likely seen.

We will eat lunch.

Farm Visit

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 as well as unknown Amazonian crops – just about every plant and tree you see serves a purpose.

Ethnobotanical Tour

On this tour, along the trail, we will find a variety of plants and trees that are used by the local population for a myriad 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.

We will eat a delicious dinner.

Macaw Project Lectures

After dinner scientists will provide an in-depth look at the biology of macaws, their feeding habits, the theories for clay lick use, their breeding and feeding ecology, population fluctuations and the threats to the conservation.

Day 03: Amazon tour

Macaw Clay Lick

On the most clear mornings of the year, dozens of large macaws and hundreds of parrots congregate on this large river bank in a raucous and colorful spectacle – which has inspired a National Geographic cover story. Discretely located fifty meters from the cliff, we will observe green-winged scarlet, blue-and-gold macaws, as well as several species of smaller parrots  as they descend into the clay. Outings are at dawn when the lick is most active. We will then enjoy a nice breakfast.

Floodplain Trail

This five kilometer trail covers the prototypical rain forest with immense trees  that criss-cross with creeks and ponds. Among the figs, ceibas and shihuahuacos we will look for squirrel, brown capuchin, and spider monkeys as well as peccaries. TRC is located within this habitat. We will then have lunch.

Pond Platform

Ten minutes upriver from the lodge is a tiny pond with a platform in the middle. It is a great place to spot waterfowl such as muscovy duck, sunbittern and hoatzin along with the woodpeckers, oropendolas, flycatchers and parakeets that call this pond their home.

We will then enjoy a wonderful dinner.

Day 04: Amzon tour

Macaw Clay Lick

On the most clear mornings of the year, dozens of large macaws and hundreds of parrots congregate on this large river bank in a raucous and colorful spectacle – which has inspired a National Geographic cover story. Discretely located fifty meters from the cliff, we will observe green-winged scarlet, blue-and-gold macaws, as well as several species of smaller parrots  as they descend into the clay. Outings are at dawn when the lick is most active. We will then enjoy a nice breakfast.

Terra Firme Trail

An entirely different habitat characterized by smaller, thinner trees atop hills and slopes, is this five kilometer trail. Saddleback tamarins are frequently found here. As we walk near the limits of the swamp, we will also keep our eyes open for rare tapir tracks. We will then have lunch.

Palm Swamp Trail

Growing on the remains of an oxbow lake, and providing both arboreal as well as terrestrial mammals with fruits throughout the year, the aguaje palms are one of the most important food sources in the rainforest. These fruits are in great demand and create great conditions for planting rice, making the palm swamp also one of the most threatened habitats. After this trail, we will enjoy dinner.

Night walk

You will have the option of hiking at night, when most of the mammals are active but difficult to see. This is a fabulous time to find frogs by using their strange shapes and sounds.

Day 05: Amazon tour

Enjoy breakfast before setting out on today’s adventure.

Overlook Trail

A three to five-kilometer hike will lead us to overlooks with magnificent views of the Tambopata as it winds its way into the lowlands. The forest around this trail is regenerating on old bamboo forest, making this place a good location for howler monkeys and dusky titi monkeys. We will enjoy lunch after this trail.

Creeks Trail

This is a different kind of Terra Firme forest, crossed by a number of creeks that will eventually reach the Tambopata River. Walking in the opposite direction of the river, we will focus on forest and creek ecology. After this trial we will have a delicious dinner.

Day 06: Tour

We will start the day off with breakfast and some free time to relax and enjoy the lodge surroundings. We invite you to try out a new trail, or repeat your favorite activity during this time. After, we will enjoy lunch before continuing on with the day.

TRC Gardens

After our long hikes we can continue to bird-watch within the confinements of TRC. Possible species sighted on the TRC clearings include: eventual canopy flocks, squirrel cuckoo, masked crimson tanager, cinammon – throated woodcreeper, speckled chachalaca and yellow-tufted woodpeckers.

Dinner

Day 07: Tour

We will begin the day with breakfast. We will then travel to airport:

• Boat transportation – TRC to Tambopata River Port
• Tambopata River Port to Puerto Maldonado headquarters
• Puerto Maldonado headquarters to airport

We will retrace our river and road journey back to Puerto Maldonado, where our office is located and then to the airport. Depending on airline schedules, this may require dawn departures.