Family Adventure in the Amazon

Upon arrival from Lima or Cusco, we will welcome you at the airport and drive you ten minutes to the Puerto Maldonado headquarters. While enjoying your first taste of the forest in the 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. Skirting Puerto Maldonado, we drive 20 kilometers to the Tambopata River Port, entering the Native Community of Infierno. The port is a communal business. From there a 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. Upon arrival, the lodge manager will welcome you and brief you with important navigation and security tips. The first night, as a prelude to the upcoming activities that will take place with your guide, we head towards the circle of fire. A series of burners lights the path that leads through the forest and meets at the circle of fire. This is where Tawa, the ancient healer, house is with all its instruments and magic potions and extracts prepared from plants of the forest. There we sit and listen to our guide through the story “Ania and the Voice of the World” and learn the story and characters. It is the starting point for the adventure that awaits us in the coming days. Overnight at Refugio Amazonas. BL/D

After an early breakfast we will have a thirty-minute walk from Refugio Amazonas that leads to the 25-meter scaffolding canopy tower. A banister 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. Later, we play the “game of seeds” and learn all the powers that the seeds of the forest have. Together with our guide we learn how to collect seeds in our walks, which will help find special powers and thus better able to seek the “Treasure of ANIA.” Each seed represents a different level, we pass the 5 levels: Pona: Truth, Huasai: Friendship Cashapona: Courage, Huayruro: Freedom, Yarina: Love. After Lunch we will enjoy an exciting journey designed for children ages 4 to 10 years. We travel with our guides on a challenging (but short) walk, where we follow maps, solve riddles and find clues that will lead to the “treasure of ANIA.” The path includes a visit to the houses of ANIA and TAWA, the grandfather of the woods. Searching for the “lost Brazil nut”, the city of ants and other fun games teaches children how people live in the rainforest, why keep it and leave a valuable message ANIA: “A child born into the jungle to fill our hearts with hope.” The concept, history and the way are all registered in the name of ANIA, a nonprofit organization with a mission to create 100,000 acres of “Land of Children” – private, protected areas managed for children. After Dinner we 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 B/L/D

After breakfast we will paddle around the lake on a canoe or a catamaran, looking for lakeside wildlife such as hoatzin, caiman and horned screamers, hoping to see the otters, which are infrequently seen here. You will also be rewarded with overhead sightings of macaws. We will return to the lodge for lunch, and after it we experience the Ethno botanical 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. Returning at the lodge, we will prepare a paste from the fruit of huito and achiote to draw dark blue and red tattoos on ourselves. They last several days. After Dinner, 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. B/L/D

After breakfast, we will experience de Parrot 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. Returning to the lodge we will have a twenty minutes walking from Refugio Amazonas to a Mammal 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. After Lunch we will have the Farm visit. Five minutes downriver from the lodge lies a farm owned and managed by charismatic Don Manuel from the neighboring community of Condenado. He grows a variety of popular and unknown Amazon crops – just about every plant and tree you see serves a purpose. After Dinner we will have nightly lectures prepared by the staff of Refugio Amazonas cover conservation threats, opportunities and projects in the Tambopata National Reserve. Overnight at Refugio Amazonas. B/L/D

After breakfast we will have a boat transfer to Tambopata River Port and then to the Puerto Maldonado Headquarters, for then be transferred to the Airport. Depending on airline schedules, this may require dawn departures. B