Welcome to the Jungle (Tambopata Research Center, 2022)
We left early for a long travel day to get to our ecolodge in the rainforest, the Tambopata Research Center. The first step? An early flight from Lima to Puerto Maldonado. LATAM is surprisingly on-time despite the apparent level of chaos at the airport.
When we arrived, we were greeted by our guide, Dino, who would be the one taking us on our various excursions during our stay. After our whole group boarded our bus, it was time to drive ten minutes to their office near the airport.
Anyone with big, checked luggage had to pull out just enough for their stay in the jungle (they store your big bags there) and repack into duffles. Since we were traveling with just small carry-ons to begin with, they let us take everything:
We then boarded the bus and drove 5 minutes to make a quick little pit stop for everyone to buy any last minute safari supplies, such as flashlights or sandals to walk around the eco lodge:
We then got on the bus again to drive 1.5 hours to the dock, where we would get onto a river boat for our scenic ride to the lodge:
It was a three hour boat ride up river to the Tambopata reserve, with only one brief stop at an official checkpoint (which was also the only chance to pee). We managed to see some birds along the way:
Also, the river is running quite low this time of year (the dry season), so our guides had to help pole the boat along in spots where it was too shallow to leave the prop submerged. At one point, we got so stuck that two of the other guides picked up poles to help dislodge the boat, and the driver in the back actually got out and started pushing the boat from behind. We eventually made it over the shallow ridge, and judging by the reactions of the guides and driver, this just seemed like another day on the job for them.
Finally, we docked and walked 15 minutes from the boat to the lodge to check in.
After our welcome (and a very welcome cold towel), we had time to shower and explore our room briefly before dinner. There is no back wall in our room, as all the rooms are completely open to the rainforest here. That means, among other things, we get a lot of bugs in our room:
But, there is mosquito netting on the bed, and a fan overhead to cool us off. The other frustrating thing was the 500m walk from the lodge building to where our room was, but this turned into a place to see wildlife a couple times later in our stay. Also, since everything is open, having some space to isolate the noise from the lodge was good.
Dino informed our group that the first activity for the next day is to see the Macaw clay lick. Unfortunately, this meant that we would need to leave the lodge at 5:00am, so the next morning, we awoke at 4:45 in the pitch black of night in order to catch another boat ride to see macaws eat clay. Yes, birds here eat dirt to get salt and other minerals that are missing from the fruit they otherwise subsist on. More on that later; first, we had to get there, which meant getting to watch the sunrise from the river:
However, as we arrived at the “clay lick”, a heavy fog settled in:
Miraculously, it burned away quickly while we listened to impatient birds squawking across the river. First came the little parrots:
Then, the macaws took their turn:
We paused for coffee, cake, and eggs on the pebbled beach when the birds flapped off for a break, though they actually came back later for a second round. Some of the people in our group were avid birdwatchers, so they could have stayed there for hours. Nick and I, however, were done after the 3rd hour of standing on the rocky beach…
On the way back, we got badly stuck on a shallow section with pebbles; the same section where the day before, our driver had to get out to push. Well, this time it was a bit more stuck, so all the guides and the driver got out to push the boat. I had actually asked the guide near me if he needed Nick and me to push as well, but he said it was OK. After a few minutes, we made it over that same ridge and continued on back to the lodge where we saw a cute capybara sunbathing on the beach:
We got back in time for lunch, and then rested for a short bit before our next excursion, a walk through the bamboo forest. Right before we started our hike, Dino saw some howler monkeys in the trees as well, including a mother with her baby on her back:
It was amazing to see them as they proceeded through the tree canopy, and it definitely made the long trip to get here worth it.
We then started our 3 hour hike where we stopped to see a huge spider web created by community spiders. They’re called that because while small, they all weave a web together to create a much larger web to catch their prey:
It’s hard to express the size of the web in a photo, but hopefully you can get a sense of it.
We continued on, and then up some stairs to get to the cliff that overlooks a smaller river:
The hope here was that at dusk, jaguars and tapirs might come to the river to drink water, so we spent most of our time here. While waiting, we were able to see many different birds in the area, including the Oro Pendula, which is named as such because their feathers when spread out are yellow, like gold, and make the shape of a pendulum. We also saw Amazonian turkeys, which are very different from American wild turkeys—they’re much smaller, and can fly. Our guide also pointed out a few small birds, whose names I can’t remember right now, but they were pretty:
Luck was not on our side today because we saw no jaguars or tapirs. However, while on the hike, we encountered one of the most venomous ants in the world, the bullet ant:
They’re huge, and their bite produces a neurotoxin that can cause painful swelling and other potentially deadly symptoms.
Dino actually told us that he was stung by one on his finger. He described it as being extremely painful and burning for a day, his finger swelled up to an abnormal size, and his heart was racing. With that story, all of us in the group made sure to keep our distance from these ants whenever we saw one.
It was about to be nighttime, so we headed back to the lodge in the dark, but before we returned, Dino pointed out this wonderful specimen:
Yep, a tarantula just chilling out on bamboo. Dino said that it probably lives inside the bamboo, because tarantulas live in caves or holes of some sort. He continued to tell us that this one is venomous and will attack, and then decides to just pick it up!
He said that because he was holding it by its midsection and that it’s safe to touch the tip of its legs if we wanted to. We trusted him, but what he didn’t tell us was that the ends of the legs are sticky, so all of us pulled back our fingers in shock.
We then made it back to the lodge to freshen up before dinner, where Dino told us that the next morning’s excursion is an 8km master rainforest hike. We would need to have breakfast at 5:30 to leave at 6:15—it’s so nice of Dino to let us sleep in…
During our trip, we’ve had numerous early flights and excursion start times, that at this point, we’ve become accustomed to waking up early. However, we still never would wake up early with any appetite, so we basically just grab a cup of coffee and go. For this hike though, we wanted to eat something to keep us going for the next few hours, so we carbo loaded on pound cake and pastries.
Almost immediately after we started our hike, Dino stopped to point at a tree trunk:
An owl butterfly was hanging out, and we were able to get a great view of the ‘eye’ that it uses to mimic an owl face. We didn’t want to scare it, so we were only able to get a side view today.
Further along the trail, we came across huge mounds formed by a huge colony of ants:
We continued back through the bamboo forest that we walked through last night, but this time, we walked out the other side to continue further. Within a few moments, Dino spotted this beautiful titi monkey:
It was quite a distance away from us, and up in the tree canopy so the only good pictures we could get were on a phone, through the lens of a telescope. It’s amazing how well you can see the features of its face.
We continued hiking through and saw some more howler monkeys. Once again, they were high up in the trees, and backlit by the sun, so Nick basically only captured their silhouettes, which don’t make for good photos…
Next, we saw another group of titi monkeys, and this time Nick was able to some decent photos of them:
After a few minutes, they decided to wander off to another part of the forest, so we continued our hike. We were happy that we had already seen so many different species of monkeys, but there were still more to try to find.
And sure enough, Dino stopped our group because he had spotted a capuchin:
All of the monkeys were quite photo shy, making it very difficult to get one good photo of them. I think Nick joked that the theme of his photos for this hike is “The backs and butts of Amazonian monkeys.”
As we journeyed further into the forest, we came across a path of leaf cutter ants doing their thing:
As we neared the end of the bamboo forest section, we saw my favorite monkey, the squirrel monkey:
It didn’t stay for very long, so Nick was happy to get any decent photo of it before it jumped off to another tree.
The next part of our hike was through the swamp, and even though it was the dry season, it was still a bit muddy. Dino navigated us through some of the sections with very soft earth, but our shoes still got quite muddy despite that effort. Honestly, this part of the hike was uneventful as there weren’t really any animals to be seen, and it was starting to get hot, so I think all of us wanted to hurry back to the lodge to rest up for lunch.
But on the last path to the lodge, we saw this cute little turtle:
Our next excursion would be a sunset cruise, which sounded pleasant after spending hours hiking through the forest.
But before that, on the way to lunch, Nick spotted a black spider monkey hanging out in the trees above the lodge:
Dino and our group boarded the boat again, and drove off to find a beach to enjoy the sunset from. On the way there, Dino spotted these burrowing owls in the sand dunes:
Sunset was quickly approaching, and Nick overheard one of the guides telling the driver that we needed to find a beach quickly to see the sunset, so moments later, we docked on a rocky beach and got out to enjoy some drinks and snacks.
Shortly afterwards, the sky turned a brilliant orange, so we all just enjoyed the amazing sunset:
It was time to head back to the lodge for dinner and our last excursion, a short evening hike. I think this is called the night time insect walk, but in reality, it’s a spider hunt.
Our first spider that Dino found was this gigantic thing:
I can’t remember the name of this spider, but it was big and fast, and I kept my distance from it. Dino, on the other hand, decided to pick it up and put it on his face to show that not all scary looking creatures are dangerous. He asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to put it on their head, and unsurprisingly, no one said yes.
Dino found another tarantula, but this one was a mother and her baby tarantulas. Nick couldn’t get a photo of the babies, but did get one of the mother out of its cave:
And finally, Dino spotted this spider in its web:
I think at this point, our group was done seeing spiders, so we headed back to the lodge to call it a night. We were the only ones in our group leaving the next day, so we said goodbye to the others because they were leaving at 5am the next morning to go back to the Macaw clay lick, while Nick and I got to sleep in until 6am.
The next morning, we were instructed to leave our larger luggage outside of our room at 6:15am so that they could be loaded onto our boat. We would have breakfast at 6:30 and board the boat at 7:15. This time, we would be headed downstream, so the ride was much faster than going upstream to the lodge.
Coincidentally, our boat ride back to the bus took us through the clay lick with the macaws, and from the river, we could see the rest of our group on shore so we waved goodbye to them. And then on the other side of us was the clay lick with many macaws feasting on it:
It was fascinating because Nick was able to take a much better photo here while passing through on a boat, than the hours we spent ashore staring at the clay lick. It was a nice way to end our amazing and unforgettable time in the Jungle.
We continued our journey back to the airport for our flight to Lima, and our last night in Peru.