Refugio Amazonas 5D/4N

Departure Date

Daily

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1519
Meals Included
Excellent Equipment
Entrances Included
Guides Capacitated
Best Experience Ever

Itinerary

Day 1

Arrival & Reception by Guide

Our guides are biologists, tourism professionals, or community members. Unless noted otherwise, our guides speak English. We assign guides at 10:1 ratio in Posada Amazonas. 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 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.

Transfer Pto Maldonado Headquarters 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.

Transfer 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 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 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.

Day 2

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 Ethnobotanical Garden

Five minutes downriver from the lodge lies a farm owned and managed by charismatic Don Manuel from the neighbouring 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 sustainably 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 difficult to see. Easier to find are frogs with shapes and sounds as bizarre as their natural histories. Overnight at Refugio Amazonas.

Day 3

Breakfast

Parrot and Parakeet 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-cheeled (Barraband`s) Parrot. We visit the lick at dawn, when parrots are most active or in midmorning or early afternoon, when they are active.

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 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

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

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.

Day 4

Breakfast

Condenado Oxbow Lake

A forty minute hike takes you Condenado Lake. You paddle canoes around the lake looking for lakeside wildlife such as hoatzin and caiman, hoping to see the otters which are infrequently seen here. You will also be rewarded with overhead sightings of macaws.

Lunch

Time off

Time off to relax and enjoy the lodge surroundings, try out a new trail, or repeat your favorite activity.

Dinner

Video Presentations

Video presentations are available every night at the interpretation center. Topics include the Tambopata National Reserve and the macaw project. Overnight at Refugio Amazonas.

Day 5

Breakfast

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.

Transfer Boat – Refugio Amazonas to Tambopata River Port

Transfer Tambopata River Port to Pto Maldonado Headquarters

Transfer Puerto Maldonado Headquarters to Airport

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.

Includes

All hotel and lodge accommodations based on double occupancy. All scheduled land and river transportation. All transfers. All scheduled excursions with English-speaking guide services. Meals as specified in the itinerary, B=Breakfast; L=Lunch; D=Dinner.

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, radio calls or messages, reconfirmation of flights and items of personal nature. Entrance fee to Tambopata National Reserve aprox. US$11.50

Group Service starts at: USD 915 per person

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