Puerto Maldonado, Peru

Puerto Maldonado is a relatively small town located in between the Tambopata National Reserve and the Manu National Park.

our method of transportation

We fly in from Cusco this morning and go by canoe to our hotel. The first planned event is the rain forest canopy tour. Basically you climb 10 stories up to the tree top level and follow a series of rope bridges. We arrived at around noon and were brought to the butterfly house where we signed releases, did paperwork, etc and then loaded the bus for the canoe. Riding though town, it was obvious the preferred method of transportation was motorcycle. The roads were designed with a special lane for motorbikes. The guide told us there were 100,000 people in Puerto maldonado and just as many motorcycles. We saw 3-4 people squeezed onto a bike heading into town. The guide explained that they are cheap compared to cars and use little gas, so it makes sense for the people to use this mode of transportation. Hard to disagree with that logic. The river had widened quite a bit from  Cusco. Several rivers join between here and there. The name of the river is now the Madre de dios (Mother of God). There are 1100 tributaries to the Amazon river. This one is the largest. The resort is awesome.  

We had a great meal and then went to the ecology center to plan our activities during our stay. We started with a nature walk though the rain forest. We learned about the primary and secondary forest. Primary is rain forest in its original state. Secondary is forest that has been previous farmed or cut but has been allowed to grow back. It takes hundreds of years for the trees to grow to the size of the primary forest, so even if an area was last farmed 30 years ago, the height of the trees is only 60 feet as opposed to the 100-120 feet height of the primary forest. In the primary forest only between 3-5% of the sunlight reaches the ground whereas in the secondary it is 20-30%.

Our first activity was a canoe cruise up the river to go spotlighting. It is typical to see caimans (the local version of alligators) and other types of wildlife that will come out in the evening looking for dinner. We did spot a caiman, who did not seem to be appreciative of the canoe full of paparazzi’s flashing and snapping away. We were able to see a Capybara, a 100 lb relative of the rat.

The guides speek good English and have a good sense of humor. They had a big fish jump in the canoe by accident last week and one of the guides shot a few photo’s. He kept saying “look at the tits on that fish. “, which did get our attention and we ran over to have a look at the photo. It turns out he was saying look at the teeth on that fish, and I will admit they were rather large.

look at the Teets on that fish

We have seen our share of rain. We had a strong thunderstorm move over during the night and one moved in on our way to the mornings excursion, causing us to postpone until this afternoon. Trey was a bit frustrated. we had a 5am Wakeup knock (no phones in the room) for the 6 am trip. We loaded up and the rain was coming down so hard that the guide suggested that we go back and put this off until the rain stopped around 10:00. It is 9:50 as I am typing and the rain has not let up yet. We plan on going to lake Sandoval to do a nature walk this afternoon. When it clears we will head to the canopy walk and the anaconda trail. There are 14 different activities offered. You are able to choose the ones you like, and do as many as will fit into your schedule. The 15th activity (and most popular) is eating. They do serve good food and it is included as part of the package. It is cruise ship style, were you have a menu and choose an appetizer, main course, and desert. The rooms have one power outlet. There is power provided 18 hours per day. The room is only cooled by a ceiling fa. It is a small screened cabana with mosquito nets over each bed. Their are kerosene lanterns to light it at night and they seem to do a good job keeping the mosquito’s away. We saw plenty on our walk but with the off and citronella splash provided by the hotel, they don’t seem to be too interested in us. The resort is only 35 rooms is is about half full right now. It feels like summer camp with a few more amenities and a gourmet restraint attached. There is no Internet and we have passed our time reading playing backgammon, and looking at photos of the previous adventures. It has been a nice relaxing break and enjoyable to slow the pace a bit. We have enjoyed good times and good company. This will be one a trip that we remember.