|
South America
 |
|
Central America
|
|
Europe
|
|
Eco-Lodges &
Special Small Hotels |
|
Armchair Travel:
Destination Guides |
|
Guidebooks
|
|
Ambles & Rambles Articles
|
|
Travel Smart
|
|
Travel and Conservation
|
|
About Sacred Earth Travel
|
|
SEARCH THIS SITE |
 Promote Your Page Too |
 |
SUGGESTED ITINERARIES:
TROPICAL BIOLOGY WORKSHOP
(for students and universities)
PRE-DEPARTURE INFORMATION
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Upon arrival from Lima or Cusco, reception and transfer to the Tambopata river port. Puerto Maldonado is situated at the confluence of the mighty Madre de Dios and Tambopata Rivers and is a bustling, booming tropical frontier town. Its principal activities are gold mining, Brazil nut collecting, timber extraction, agriculture and ecotourism. After a brief survey of the town we will depart on the 2 hour boat trip by motorized canoe to Posada Amazonas.
Depending on the arrival time of the plane we will have a boxed lunch aboard the boats or have lunch upon arrival at Posada Amazonas. During our voyage we may see bird species typical of the river or forest edge such as: Black Skimmer, Pied Lapwing, Capped Heron, Jabiru Stork, Roadside Hawk, and several species of kingfishers, swallows and flycatchers. When we arrive at Posada Amazonas we will unpack and unwind. Posada Amazonas is a comfortable yet unobtrusive 30 room lodge owned jointly by Rainforest Expeditions and the Local Community of Infierno. We will receive a short orientation and a complete briefing on the lodge and the Ecotourism Project before our afternoon activity : the canopy tower. In this activity, we will visit a 35 meter scaffolding tower that is 15 minutes walking from the lodge. The scaffolding tower is built so that you safely climb using the internal staircase with verandahs on each side, and rest in platforms present every 2 meters. From the top you not only get spectacular views of the river and the surrounding forest but also excellent opportunities to observe birds from the canopy including parrots, toucans and macaws. A video about the forest of Tambopata will be displayed after dinner.
L, D
We will be up at dawn for a visit to the Tres Chimbadas oxbow lake. After an early breakfast we depart, fifteen minutes from Posada Amazonas by boat and a 30 minute walk take us to the lake shore. From here we take a long, easy canoe ride around it. We will look for giant river otters, turtles, hoatzin, and wading birds. The giant river otters that are seen in Tres Chimbadas belong to a resident family of nine. After the first hour we will leave the final traces of human habitation behind as we cross the northern boundary of the 700,000 hectare, completely uninhabited, heart of the Tambopata National Reserve. Differences in wildlife abundance will be noted immediately: we will begin to sight macaws, herons, kingfishers and cormorants frequently and improve our chances of encounters with capybaras, caiman, storks, ducks and other wildlife. We will arrive at Tambopata Research Center in the late morning, being greeted by the Chicos, our flock of semi-wild, rescued macaws. Over lunch we will hold an orientation session. After lunch we will begin our workshop program of activities. We will visit the bamboo trail and obtain data that will help determine the extension of the territories of three species of birds that live in this habitat. We will use playbacks of these birdīs calls to map out their territories from the position of their responses to the playbacks. Then we will return to the lodge for dinner before a nocturnal outing to study frogs. We will work in transects adjacent to a seasonal pond and scrutinize them carefully for the presence of different frog species. Each individual frog encountered will be identified, weighed and measured and the data obtained will help characterize frog communities near these ponds.
B,L,D
At dawn we will cross the river and enjoy the world's largest macaw clay lick where hundreds of parrots and macaws of up to 15 species congregate daily. The January 1994 issue of National Geographic features an article on Tambopata Research Center and the Tambopata Macaw Project. It begins with a description of the daily spectacle at the clay lick: " When the morning sun clears the Amazon tree line in southeastern Peru and strikes a gray-pink clay bank on the upper Tambopata River, one of the world's most dazzling wildlife gatherings is nearing its riotous peak. The steep bank has become a pulsing, 130-foot-high palette of red, blue, yellow and green as more than a thousand parrots squabble over choice perches to grab a beakful of clay, a vital but mysterious part of their diet. More than a dozen parrot species will visit the clay lick throughout the day, but this midmorning crush belongs to the giants of the parrot world, the macaws."
You can expect to see ten to twelve of the following members of the parrot family: Red-and-green, Blue-and-gold, Scarlet, Red-bellied, Chestnut-fronted and Blue-headed Macaws; Mealy and Yellow-crowned Amazons; Blue-headed, Orange-cheeked and White-bellied Parrots; Dusky-headed, White-eyed, Cobalt-winged and Tui Parakeets and Dusky-billed Parrotlets. This show will continue until the macaws sense danger, usually in the form of an eagle, and depart simultaneously in an explosion of sound and color. Around mid-morning, when the most intense clay lick activity is over for the day, we will return to TRC for breakfast.
After breakfast we will work in the 1.5 mile Ocelot Trail, with mammals. We will slowly walk around the whole trail, annotating all mammal encounters, whether they are sighted, heard or their tracks seen. After our walk, the annotated encounters and the estimate of the distance walked we will be able to estimate the density of certain mammals per unit of area. After a late lunch we will take a short five minute boat ride to a small lake where we will study fish and their relation to the waters abiotic conditions. We will measure different abiotic water properties and attempt to relate how these affect the composition of the fish community at this pond. We return to the lodge for dinner and then visit a preestablished plot where we will conduct studies on a particular order of insects (usually grasshoppers) attempting to determine the preferred plant substrate and hour of activity for the most important families.
B,L,D.
We will wake up at dawn once again but in this case will visit to the clay lick to monitor macaw activity. We will count macaws every fifteen minutes, estimating how many are flying in, how many are perching, how many are on the clay lick, etc. We will record any activities which are abnormal. This data will feed the ongoing macaw monitoring project. After breakfast we will conduct a botany workshop, attempting to determine the role of seed predation on the natural regeneration of palm trees. After lunch we will visit the Blue and gold macaw nesting colony in the palm swamp, in order to obtain excellent photos of macaws flying in and out of their nests. Dinner and overnight. We will listen to macaw project researchers give us a summary of their ongoing project.
B,L,D.
We will wake up at dawn once again to visit the clay lick and then return for breakfast. After breakfast we will depart back to Posada Amazonas, where we should arrive in four hours in the early afternoon. Then we will return to the lodge for lunch before embarking on our afternoon outing. In the afternoon we will visit the community's ethnobotanical center. From this little shop, the community has been registering the uses of medicinal plants from elders and planting, producing and distributing them for over ten years. We will hike the trails around the center with one of the residents who will explain to us the everyday uses of forest resources in medicine, construction, food and fiber. We will return to Posada Amazonas for dinner and overnight. We will spend our last night in the rain forest in this wonderfully designed lodge, pondering over the exciting happenings of the past few days.
B,L,D.
After an early morning wake up call and breakfast we will leave for our 2 hour ride back to Puerto Maldonado and the airport for our flight back to Lima or Cusco.
B.
Rates on request - for booking inquiries and further information please contact Sacred Earth
