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JUNGLE TOURS
Sandoval Lake Lodge (03 Days/02 Nights Program)
Tambopata, Peru.
Located a 25 minute motor canoe ride down the River
Madre de Dios from Puerto Maldonado, Sandoval Lake Lodge
is perched above what many rainforest specialists feel
is the most attractive lake in Southern Peru, if not in
the entire Peruvian Amazon.
The whole complex is housed in one structure and
includes 25 double occupancy rooms (all with private
baths), hot showers, and a spacious dining room
overlooking the lake.
For a more relaxed, complete introduction to the
rainforest, we recommend a two nights stay. However,
with the easy access from Puerto Maldonado, for the
first time it is possible to spend only one night in the
rainforest and still get a good preliminary idea of the
splendor of the Peruvian Amazon.
03 Days/02 Nights Program
Day 1
Transfer from Puerto Maldonado airport to the river port
on the Madre de Dios River. A 25 minutes journey down
the Madre de Dios River by motor canoe brings you to the
end of the trail in to Sandoval Lake Lodge. From here
the trail takes you on a 2-mile walk/or rickshaw ride
through secondary forest, until we reach a small canal
where we board canoes and are paddled 220 yards through
a flooded forest of 100-foot tall Mauritia palms. As the
canal opens onto the shimmering surface of the lake, we
transfer to a catamaran and are leisurely paddled across
half the lake to the lodge.
After lunch and a brief rest to avoid the early
afternoon heat, we once again board the catamaran and
set off to explore the entire west end of the lake. Here,
in the flooded palm forest we drift to the sounds of
hundreds of Red-Bellied Macaws as they return to the
palm forest for the night. We return to the lodge around
nightfall for dinner.
After dinner we will return to the canoes to look for
the large and extremely rare Black Caimans. If it is a
clear starlit night, we will also be able to float in
the middle of the lake and marvel at the brilliance of
the sky.
Day 2
A pre-dawn wake-up call will enable us to be on the lake
for sunrise and a hopeful encounter with the family of
Giant Otters which frequent the lake and are most active
at this time of day. Most of the fish-eating water birds
around the lake actively fish in the early morning as
well, and this outing should provide excellent views,
and photographs, of the prehistoric- looking Hoatzins.
After returning for a late breakfast we set off into the
cool understory of the tall virgin forest near the lake
to see some towering wild Brazil Nut trees and a
demonstration of how our hosts collect, open and
commercialize this important natural product.
After lunch and an hour or so to relax we once again
board the catamaran to explore the eastern part of the
lake, where we might see one or more of the five species
of monkeys which live in the forest near the lake, such
as the Brown Capuchin Monkey.
There is a final chance after dinner to try and spot
some Black Caimans on the lake, or to go on a short
night walk through the primary forest.
Day 3
After a dawn breakfast we take a final, shorter
paddle around the west end of the lake to try and
glimpse the Giant Otters before returning to Puerto
Maldonado to catch the flight to Lima.
Rates
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