my time in: the Peruvian Amazon
in Puerto Maldonado, you can step foot in to Amazon rainforest
synopsis
best for: nature-lovers
top things to do: book a tour of the jungle! visit the market (when it’s open) in the main square, Plaza de Armas
top restaurants: the food at the eco-lodge i stayed at was incredible. shout out Monte Amazonico lodge.
costs: $$/$$$
cultural overview: centered around tourism and sustainable visits into the jungle
favorite memory: canopy bridge walk between two massive trees, overlooking the entire forest. we were 40+ meters up in the air!
i spent a weekend in the Peruvian Amazon, busing to Puerto Maldonado from Cusco, then taking a boat up the Madre de Dios River to my lodge, Monte Amazonico. i did an organized tour, since you need to be with an authorized agency to enter the Tambopata Reserve, a national park in the Peruvian Amazon. every day had a set itinerary, and i was there for 3 days, 2 nights. here’s what i got up to:
december 20th
after getting to the lodge, we started off with a rainforest walk for about 2 hours. we set off with our guide, Ganzalo, who enthusiastically pointed out different flora and fauna along the way. my favorite were the “strangler” palm trees, that wrap themselves around other trees and steal their natural resources.
after a brief rest, we took a canoe across the river to Monkey Island, home to multiple species of primates. we brought along fresh fruit to tempt the monkeys, which was super fun!
after dinner and once the sun set, we sent out by canoe to look for caimans, a South American reptile, similar to a croc or alligator. we only saw a baby caiman, but we managed to see a handful of capybaras along the riverbanks. they look like shrunken horses to me. and they also weirdly resemble kiwis?
anyways, i went to bed early because we had a long day ahead of us.
december 21st
today, we went to the crown jewel of the Tambopata Reserve: Lake Sandoval. we canoed about 15 minutes down the river, and hiked for about 1 hour to reach the lake. there, we spent the entire day canoeing around the lake, seeing loads of different animals. we saw a cute family of sea otters, capuchin monkeys in the trees, herons, piranhas, and an adult caiman that our guide named “Molly.” Gonzalo brought us to a spot of the lake he knew Molly liked to hang out in, and after calling out her name a few times, she appeared suddenly next to our canoe. about 2 meters long, with a face that looked creepily like an animatronic, we fed Molly pieces of bread before leaving to visit other parts of the lake.
at night, we did another jungle hike. this time, Gonzalo pointed out specifically all the insects that come out at night in the rainforest. i got to touch a tarantula which was a huge mistake: i couldn’t fall asleep this night and kept picturing insects crawling all over me.
december 22nd
this was our last morning before heading back down the river to Puerto Maldonado, but we went on one last quick excursion: the lodge has a canopy walk with multiple platforms spanning three massive trees, up 40 meters in the sky. you have an amazing view over the foliage of the rainforest, and it’s super fun to walk across the metal bridge between platforms. if you’re willing to pay extra (i wasn’t) you can even zipline between platforms over the rainforest!
i spent the day in Puerto Maldonado before my bus back to Cusco, stopping at an adorable Christmas market in Plaza de Armas, the main square of town. i bought a handcrafted beaded bracelet from a Shipibo craftswoman, a native tribe of the Peruvian Amazon, as well as buying an acai bowl with locally sourced acai (obviously, this was insane and ruined all future acai bowls for me).
overall thoughts
Monte Amazonico Lodge offers a variety of tours, of different lengths, catered to different interests, and with different excursions. mine was on the shorter side, but i very much enjoyed my time there. it was beautiful to be in the Amazon, and while i’m not necessarily a wildlife fanatic, i do love to be in nature. being there made me appreciate how ancient human civilizations had to adapt and accommodate to their environment, which is relentless. from the flash rainstorms, to the mosquitos, it was certainly not easy to be a hunter-gatherer in the Peruvian Amazon, millennia ago.
next stop
after Cusco and the Amazon, i spent three days in the capital city, Lima!
images and video
i mostly took videos of my time here of the different flora and fauna i saw, so i stitched everything into a little clip!
