3 Days: Puerto Maldonado Extension Tour

Option A: INKATERRA RESERVA AMAZONICA (3d/2n)

Day 1: Welcome in Puerto Maldonado. Visit the Inkaterra Butterfly House near the airport, check-in, and in only 15 minutes, you can get to the boarding wharf. Begin to experience the enchantment of the rainforest, as you take a 45-minute boat ride along the Madre de Dios River to arrive at Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica lodge.

After a short briefing, settle into your beautiful cabaña and enjoy your lunch in the dining room. Take a siesta, share a refreshing tea time and get ready for the afternoon excursion.

After gathering with your inkaterra Interpreter, choose from the 14 different excursions available at the Inkaterra lodge. On your first day, we recommend a guided walk along the Trail system, into the Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica natural area, where you will discover the Amazon Basin. This trail offers an excellent introduction to the forest environment, winding past impressive trees such as the staggeringly tall kapok, and the strangely beautiful strangler fig, offering excellent opportunities for bird watching and observing exotic insects.

We also recommend on the first night our Twilight River excursion — a guided afternoon boat ride downriver from the Inkaterra lodge. Witness the transformation from a diurnal to a nocturnal world: animals and birds of the daytime give way to species specially adapted to the night. As you enjoy their paradise, you will learn about their habits, while you search for nightjars, owls, capybaras and big caiman.

We will gather at The Eco Center and present all available excursions. Enjoy cocktails before dinner, served in the main dining room from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

After dinner, you may retire early to your own cabana, or join us to talk about the experience of life in the rainforest, as you listen to the intriguing sounds of the jungle at night.

Day 2: Rest in bed or rise early — the choice is yours. Breakfast begins at 5:30 a.m., for those who want to avoid the heat and enjoy nature at its fullest. A full buffet breakfast is served from 7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

This morning you may visit the Sandoval lake excursion into the Tambopata National Reserve. Glide in a wooden canoe, across a beautiful, mirror-like oxbow lake that is home to the endangered giant river otter, as well as red howler monkeys, red-bellied macaws, anacondas, point-tailed palm creepers and side-neck turtles. Return to the Inkaterra lodge for lunch.

After lunch, consider visit the remarkable Inkaterra Canopy. Ascending the first tower, 29 meters above the forest ground, you begin your encounter with the treetop realm.  For more than a quarter of a mile, you will literally walk through the rainforest canopy on a suspension bridge network linking eight observation platforms.

Day 3:Enjoy a full breakfast before departure. A 45-minute return trip by boat on the Madre de Dios River takes you to Puerto Maldonado to take the flight to Cusco or Lima.

2019 Prices under request

Option B: SANDOVAL LAKE LODGE (3d/2n)

Day 1: Puerto Maldonado to Lake Sandoval. 
Our staff welcomes you at Puerto Maldonado airport and we drive through this bustling Upper Amazon Basin city to the Tambopata River boat dock. Here we board a powerful motorized dugout canoe and set off to the nearby confluence of the mighty Madre de Dios River, a headwaters tributary of the Amazon. Here we turn downstream for a 25-minute river trip to the trailhead landing at Lake Sandoval.

Stopping as we go to spot birds and butterflies, we walk – or take a rickshaw ride – along the 3km/2 mile trail to the narrow boat channel through flooded palm forest that leads to the open waters of this peaceful lake. As our crew paddle us across to the lodge (motors are prohibited here), we may see the lake’s surface boken by a massive Paiche – an Amazon fish that can reach 100kg/220lbs. Or perhaps we will hear the strange and haunting calls, and see the heads bobbing above the lake’s surface, that will signal our first acquaintance with Pteronura brasiliensis, the Amazonian Giant Otter.

After lunch and a brief rest to avoid the early afternoon heat, we once again set off by boat or catamaran to explore the entire west end of the lake. Here, along the fringes of flooded palm forest we drift to the sounds of hundreds of Red-Bellied and Blue-and-yellow Macaws as they return to the palm forest for the night. Our viewpoint from the canoe often allows closer and more extended encounters with birds and mammals than on a typical forest trail hike, and we may witness intimate feeding and mating behavior. On Lake Sandoval monkeys, in particular, have almost lost their fear of humans.

We return to the lodge around nightfall for dinner. After dinner we take to the boats once more, in search of black caimans, which today are extremely rare in the Amazon, but still common in this protected lake. They grow up to 4m in length, and compete with the Giant Otters for their share of the fishing. On clear nights we take our boat further out into the lake to get an unimpeded view of the vast southern sky, with its unfamiliar constellations and superb vistas of the Milky Way.

Day 2: Lake Sandoval. 
A pre-dawn wake-up call will allow us to be on the lake for what is often a spectacular sunrise, and hopefully an encounter with the Giant Otters, which patrol the entire lake in a close-knit family pack, and are most active at this hour of the day. Most of the lake’s birdlife is extremely active now, too, and this outing should provide views of numerous species of fish-eating birds as they stalk and catch their prey, along with close-up views of the large, clumsy and primitive leaf-eating Hoatzins.

After returning for a late breakfast we set off on a trail walk through the cool understory of the mighty primary rainforest that surrounds the lake. We will see the great Brazil-nut trees that are abundant here, and meet a local family – the only people permitted to live here permanently and harvest the natural bounty of Lake Sandoval. They will show us how they collect the nuts, remove their shells and market this important forest product.

Day 3: Lake Sandoval to Puerto Maldonado.
After a dawn breakfast we take a final, short paddle along the palm swamps of the west end of the lake in search of the resident Giant Otter family. From here, on clear mornings, we will see a glorious sunrise and its reflection in the open waters of the lake. Returning once more down the trail to the Madre de Dios River, we return to Puerto Maldonado to catch the flight to Cusco or Lima.

2019 Prices under request

Option C: TAMBOPATA LODGE (3d/2n)

Day 1: Flight to Puerto Maldonado, and journey to the lodge.
Following your early morning flight to Puerto Maldonado from Lima or Cusco, you will be met at the airport by your naturalist guide and transferred to a dugout canoe for the trip up the Tambopata River to the lodge.  On the journey the vegetation changes from colonized deforested areas to virgin rain forest.  A box-lunch is provided on board.  On arrival you'll have a welcome drink and meet the rest of the staff.  In the late afternoon you set off for an introductory walk into the "terra firme" forest behind the lodge (Trail 2), dominated by giant Brazil-nut and Dipteryx trees.  Frequently seen mammals on this trail are Saddle-back Tamarinds, Brown Capuchins, Agoutis, Pacas, Blue-Morpho butterflies, Trogons, Toucans and many other species of birds. After dinner a night walk to find nocturnal animals or insects by the eye-shine a specialization for increasing the light and see better, about 50% of the animals are nocturnal in the rainforest. (L/D)

Day 2: Hike to Lake Condenado. After an early breakfast you and your nature guide will board the motorized canoe once again for the short journey to the trail head to begin a morning's exploration by foot and paddle canoe of the lake system of Condenado, rich in bird and aquatic life.  A family of Giant Otters live in the vicinity of the lake and are often observed.  Birds abound especially Rufescent Tiger-herons, Great Egrets, Wattled Jacanas, Hoatzin, the noisy Donacobius and many others.  Remember to bring your hat and sun cream for there is no shade out on the water.  You will return to the lodge in time for lunch.  The afternoon is for exploring the forest close to the lodge (with or without your guide), relaxing and bathing in the Gallucunca, a cool clear stream beside the lodge or visit our tree platforms, going up with ropes and harnesses for a bird's eye view of the forest and for close-ups of arboreal orchids and the many other species of plants and animals that are never seen near the ground (extra cost).  After dark you will go searching for caiman (alligators) and other nocturnal animals by motorized canoe along the Tambopata River. (B/L/D)

Day 3: Departure
A dawn start is required for the canoe trip back to Puerto Maldonado giving memorable views of the sun rise over the river. Look out for the early morning wildlife which is particularly active at this time.  Howler monkeys are frequently heard, as they stakeout their territories.  Your guide will take care of you on arrival in Puerto Maldonado and will deal with all the necessities at the airport prior to you departure. (B)

2019 Prices under request

INCLUDED:

• Transfers from the airport to the port in Puerto Maldonado and viceversa.
• Accommodations with all meals (from lunch on the first day to the breakfast on the last day).
• Bilingual (English/Spanish) speaking guide.
• River transportation.
• All guided excursion describes in each itinerary.
• Tambopata National Reserve entrance fee at Reserva Amazonica and Sandoval Lake Lodge.

NOT INCLUDED:

• Airport departure taxes
• Air tickets to and from Puerto Maldonado
• Tambopata National Reserve entrance fee at Libertador Tambopata Lodge: $11.50 per person