Tambopata, Sandoval Lake and Chuncho Clay Lick

Lake Sandoval

After breakfast, around 8:00 a.m., you travel about 20 minutes along the Madre de Dios to the entrance of Sandoval Lake in Tambopata National Reserve. After checking in at the control post, you walk 3 km (about 45 minutes) through the tropical forest with your guide, watching for monkeys, birds, reptiles and insects.

On the lake shore you can swim and have a picnic-style lunch. In the afternoon you paddle a canoe across the lake to look for hoatzins, cormorants, anhingas and, with luck, giant river otters. You return by boat to the lodge for dinner; if you like, you can join an optional night walk.

Overnight: Amazon Garden Lodge

Upper Tambopata – Night Walk

Around 8:30 a.m. you travel one hour by boat to Puerto Maldonado, then continue along the Interoceanic Highway and a secondary road to the Tambopata River. From there you ride about 30 minutes by motorboat, with chances to see birds, capybaras and white caimans along the banks, to the lodge, where you are greeted with a tropical drink.

After lunch you take a guided walk through primary forest, where your guide explains Brazil nut harvesting, farming and other regional activities; you may see monkeys. At dusk you head out with flashlights along the riverbank looking for caimans and capybaras; after dinner there is an optional night walk through the forest.

Overnight: Lodge in the upper Tambopata

Chuncho Macaw Clay Lick – Quebrada El Gato – Puerto Maldonado

After coffee you leave at 4:30 a.m. and travel about one hour upriver on the Tambopata. At the Chuncho macaw clay lick you watch dozens of parrots and macaws gather on the clay wall, an activity that usually lasts from 6:00 to 11:00 a.m.; you have breakfast with a view of the clay lick. On the way back you stop at the control post, which has a small interpretation center on the biodiversity of Tambopata.

You have lunch at the lodge and in the afternoon visit the Quebrada El Gato waterfall, where you can swim. Then you travel 20 minutes downriver to the road and drive about two hours back to Puerto Maldonado.