Arrival & Reception by your Guide. Our guides are biologists, tourism professionals, or community members. Unless noted otherwise, our guides speak English. We assign guides at a 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 from the Airport to our 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 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 kilometres to the Tambopata River Port, entering the Native Community of Infierno. The port is a local community venture.

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, continuing into the buffer zone of this 1.3 million hectare reserve.

Refugio Amazonas is a charming 32 bedroom lodge well placed immediately adjacent to the Tambopata National Reserve.

Boxed Lunch

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

Dinner

Caiman Search: We will be out on 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

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Breakfast

Oxbow Lake Visit: We will paddle around the lake in a canoe or on a catamaran looking for lakeside wildlife such as caiman, hoatzin and horned screamers, hoping to see the giant river otters infrequently seen here. You will be rewarded with overhead sightings of macaws.

Canopy Tower: A thirty minute walk from Refugio Amazonas leads to the 25-metre high scaffolding canopy tower. A staircase with banister running through the middle provides safe access to the platforms above. The tower has been built upon high ground, therefore maximising your view of the continuous primary forest extending out towards the Tambopata National Reserve. From here, sightings of mixed-specie canopy flocks as well as toucans, macaws and raptors are likely.

Lunch

Farm Visit: Five minutes downriver from the lodge is a farm owned and managed by charismatic Don Manuel from the neighbouring community of Condenado. He grows a variety of popular and little-known Amazon crops - just about every plant and tree you see serves a purpose.

Ethnobotanical 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 Lecture: Nightly lectures prepared by the staff of Refugio Amazonas cover conservation threats, opportunities and projects in the Tambopata National Reserve.

Overnight at Refugio Amazonas

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Breakfast

Parrot Clay Lick: A fifteen minute boat ride and sixty minute walk from Refugio Amazonas is a parakeet clay lick. From a blind you will see 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 the birds are most active or in mid-morning or early afternoon, when they are also active.

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.

Mammal Clay Lick: 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. Chances of spotting them are around 15%, but well worth the short hike. Other wildlife that may also arrive includes deer, guans and parakeets.

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..

Overnight at Refugio Amazonas

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Breakfast

Transfer by Boat from Refugio Amazonas to the Tambopata River Port.

Transfer from the Tambopata River Port to our Puerto Maldonado Headquarters.

Transfer from our Puerto Maldonado Headquarters to the Airport. 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.

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Cost per person sharing double, twin or triple room: US$520

Single (if you do not wish to share accommodation): US$670

Included: All meals, accommodation, and services as detailed above, all river transportation, as well as transfers from and to the airport in Puerto Maldonado.

Not Included: International or domestic airfares, airport departure taxes or visa fees, excess baggage charges, additional nights during the trip due to flight cancellations, alcoholic beverages or bottled water, snacks, insurance of any kind, laundry, phone calls or messages, reconfirmation of flights and items of a personal nature.

We reserve the right to change the order of activities or trails due to weather or other local conditions.

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A number of add-on activities are available at the different lodges, please contact me for more details and to confirm availability:

At Refugio Amazonas

Kayaking on the Tambopata River, time: 2-3hrs, cost US$65 per person, max. 10 people.
No previous experience is required. A boat will bring us upriver and then we will paddle down a portion of the Tambopata River with some rapids, although most of the progress presents low difficulty. At the shores we will observe fragmented parts of the forest and come across with locals that work at the few farms in the region. To finish our experience, we´ll stop on a sandy beach and take a well deserved bath. No experience required, only swimming knowledge.

Canopy Climbing up a 30m High Tree, cost US$40per person, maximum 10 people.
Replicating the daily work of macaw researchers, we will climb a 30-metre high tree with a rope, harness and jumar. From this vantage point we will have a macaws eye view of the forest. This demanding exercise is perfectly safe and requires no previous experience.

Variety of Holistic Treatments Ranging from Aromatherapy to Mud baths, Massages and Herbal Baths, cost US$35 per person, please contact me for more details.

Children's Rainforest Trail: Ania & The World's Voice, cost: US$60 per person.
A short trail designed for children with the help of ANIA (Association for Children and their Environment), an environmental education NGO. Children ages 4 to 9 years hike with a guide through a challenging (but short) trail where they follow maps, solve riddles and find clues that will lead them to Ania's "gifts". The trail teaches kids how people live in the rainforest and leaves a valuable message from Ania, "a girl born in the depths of the rain forest to fill our hearts with hope". The concept, the story and the trail are trademarked by ANIA, a non profit organisation with the mission of creating 100,000 hectares of "Tierras de los Niños" (Children's Lands) - private protected areas managed by children.

Children's Rainforest Trail: Ania & The Forest's Treasure, cost: US$60 per person.
Trail designed by ANIA, somewhat longer, which requires a five minute boat ride. Features include Ant City, the search for the lost Brazil Nut, a shihuahuaco tree to climb and a visit to Ania's home near Lake Condenado.

Jungle Mountain Biking, cost US$35 per person, maximum 10 people.
Our ride begins 10 minutes from the lodge, and then loops 10 kilometres through mature forest and numerous creek beds.

Biking to Puerto Maldonado at the end of your program, cost: US$200 per person, max. 10 people. Change the engine for pedals and ride back to Puerto Maldonado on a mountain-bike. An early boat will take you to the Tambopata River Port in the Native Community of Infierno. From there you will bike back the 20 kilometre road to Puerto Maldonado that has short slopes and presents little technical difficulty, but it will be hot and sweaty. At our Puerto Maldonado Office a shower will await you. Afterwards you will be driven to the airport. This activity is always subject to airline departure times.

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