Where to see wildlife in the Amazon rainforest?
04 September 2022 (290 visits)Forming a vast green carpet of vegetation to the east of the Andes mountain range, the Amazon basin covers more than six and a half million square miles and stretches into the territory of nine nations. For anyone planning to visit the home of an estimated 10% of the Earth’s total biodiversity, its sheer scale can be a daunting prospect!
Because the forests of South America are so enormous, easy access is the key. Anyone planning to visit the Amazon as part of their annual vacation needs to choose their destination carefully.
Of the three main areas of Amazon forest visited regularly by those who travel to Peru, the most easily accessible by far is Tambopata National Reserve, our neighbor at Tambopata Ecolodge. Scheduled flights from Cusco (or from Lima) mean that travelers can truly immerse themselves in untouched, primary rainforest as part of a 3-, 4- or 5-day all-inclusive, eco-lodge based section of their 10-day or 2-week Peru vacation. To fully enjoy other popular rainforest destinations in Peru, travelers may need to set aside up to seven days.
In fact, many travelers choose to visit us at Tambopata Ecolodge at the end of their holiday in Peru, after their Cusco stay and their Machu Picchu visit. An experience featuring comfortable cabins, with plenty of time to relax in a hammock or enjoy our bar and dining room service, following guided excursions into tropical forest ecosystems, is certainly one of the best ways imaginable to relax following a week or two in the high Andes.
Following a flight from Lima or Cusco, the gateway to Tambopata is the jungle town of Puerto Maldonado. Here, we meet our guests at the airport and drive them to the river port, where the ecoadventure really begins. Because we have built our lodge on land fully protected against encroachment from the outside world, where Amazon flora and fauna can flourish undisturbed, it takes a few hours to travel by boat to our rainforest home. But the journey to get to us is an important part of the experience: one of the best ways to spot wildlife, get a feel for the forest, and to simply relax as the modern world is left far behind, is to take a boat ride along a major Amazon basin river!
When they arrive at our eco-lodge, we welcome all our guests individually and make sure they have everything they need and have settled in. They will have eaten on the boat, and their evening meal will be served in our dining room, after which they will have time to relax in our bar-lounge, before getting a good night’s sleep, lulled by the sounds of the surrounding rainforest, in preparation for the ecotourism activities the following day.
This is the rhythm of life at our Tambopata Ecolodge: a relaxing, comfortable and laidback eco-lodge experience, as the perfect base for exploring some of South America’s most extraordinary rainforest attractions.
