|
DAY 1: PUERTO
MALDONADO
We meet your morning jet flight from
Lima or Cusco and transport you
three miles by paved road to the
river port of the town of Puerto
Maldonado on the Madre de Dios River.
There you board our large, 55-foot-long
passenger canoe, which is powered by
an outboard motor. This canoe
transports you 25 minutes downstream
to the end of the trail into
Sandoval Lake. At this point you and
your guide walk or ride slowly in a
custom-made rain forest rickshaw for
two miles on a flat, wide trail
through tall secondary forest that
harbors many hundreds of species of
beautiful butterflies, many of which
can be seen on bushes and on the
ground along the trail.
At the end of this walk, we board
smaller canoes so that our guides
can paddle us for 220 yards through
a narrow, intimate canal that
traverses an exotic flooded forest
of 100-foot-tall Mauritia palms (called
"aguajes" in Peru). The canal opens
onto the shimmering surface of the
scenic Sandoval Lake. The canoe ride
to the lodge itself takes you across
half of this beautiful lake, which
many rain forest specialists feel is
the single most attractive lake in
all of southern Peru if not in the
entire Peruvian Amazon.
Upon arriving at the lakeside dock
of the lodge, we walk 100 yards
gradually uphill through intact
primary forest to reach the lodge
itself, which lies about 100 feet
above the lake level. After settling
into your room, you will enjoy lunch
in the spacious dining room
overlooking the lake After lunch, we
suggest resting and then rebounding
our canoe at about 4:00 or 4:30 pm (depending
upon how hot it is that day) for a
complete tour of the west end of
this two-mile-long lake. The west
end of the lake includes the flooded
palm forest, which is the home of
hundreds of talkative red-bellied
Macaws (long-tailed parrots).}We
will return to the lodge just before
or just after nightfall, depending
on the tastes of your group. If we
return to the lodge just after
nightfall, we have excellent chances
to see several or many Black Caimans,
the large, handsome crocodilians
that are so rare now in most of the
Amazon. Drinks and dinner in the
lodge, and early to bed.
DAY 2: VIRGIN
FOREST.
Early rise, with breakfast before or
just after dawn (depending on the
tastes of your group), followed by a
two-hour canoe outing on the lake.
The morning is the best time to
search for the lake's Giant Otters,
for studies by the Selva Sur
conservation group have shown that
the otters are most active and eat
most of their daily diet of small
and large fish at this time of day.
Most of the fish-eating water birds
around the edge of the lake actively
fish in the early morning as well.
This outing offers an excellent
chance to get excellent looks and
sometimes even good pictures of
Hoatzins. With their spiky, punk
crests, weird blue faces, and red
eyes, these extremely strange,
prehistoric-looking birds specialize
on life in the curtain of vegetation
that hangs down to the water along
much of the lake edge. They have an
extra-long digestive tracts that
permit foregut fermentation and
digestion of the leaves they eat,
much as a cow or a howler monkey
ferments and digests grass and tree
leaves, respectively.
After stretching our legs at the
lodge for a half hour or so and
regrouping, we set off into the cool
under story 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.
Incidentally, the lodge was built in
a former agricultural clearing of
our Brazil nut collector hosts, so
required no felling of the
surrounding primary forest. This is
not the case of any of the other
lodges on the Madre de Dios River,
all of which required the felling of
primary forest. Also, the Sandoval
Lake Lodge is the ONLY lodge in or
adjacent to the Tambopata-Candamo
Reserved Zone built from naturally-harvested
driftwood mahogany. This detail and
many others make Sandoval Lake Lodge
the one and only ecologically-correct
lodge within easy reach of Puerto
Maldonado.
After the Brazil nut outing, lunch
is served at the lodge. After lunch,
we suggest resting until the mid-to-late
afternoon, when we offer another
late afternoon outing on the lake to
explore other corners of the lake
that you did not see properly in
previous outings. In addition to the
many bird species that can be seen
well along the lake, often we can
see one or more of the five species
of monkeys that live in the forest
near the lake. These monkey species
include the Brown Capuchin Monkey,
the Bolivian Squirrel Monkey, the
Red Howler Monkey, the Saddle-backed
Tamarin Monkey, and the Night Monkey.
Dinner is served back at the lodge.
There will be a brief, optional
after-dinner canoe outing on the
lake to spot the eye shine, and
possibly to paddle up close to,
several Black Caimans, or, if your
group already did that on the first
evening before dinner, we can
arrange a short, optional night walk
in the primary forest next to the
lodge. The rain forest comes alive
at night, with about 90 species of
bats, 40 species of frogs, 70
species of large katydids (large,
beautiful rain forest grasshoppers),
and four species of cats. The cat
species at the lake are the Jaguar,
the Puma, the Ocelot, and the Margay
(which is like a small Ocelot). Note
that we are much more likely to see
tracks of these cats than the cats
themselves.
DAY 3: TRANSFER
OUT.
After breakfast at about dawn, we
take a final, shorter paddle around
the western end of the lake to try
to glimpse the Giant Otters and to
take some final pictures of lake
birds before entering the canal
again, walking back to the river,
boarding our motor canoe for town,
and driving to the airport to catch
the flight to Cusco and Lima. |
 |
|
NOTE: Due to the remoteness of the lodge
from the main river, we ask all
travelers to limit their luggage to
15 kilos (33 lbs.) per person.
Excess baggage can be left in our
Puerto Maldonado office at no charge,
but any gear in excess of the limit
will be assessed at a rate of S\ .5
(15 cents US per pound).
INCLUDED:
pickup at the Puerto Maldonado
airport.
river canoe transportation to
Sandoval Lake.
accommodations with private bath,
all meals.
excursions by catamaran viewing
Giant Otters and caiman watching.
expert naturalist guides.
use of the Lodge's miles of nature
trails.
NOT
INCLUDED IN THE FEE:
International or domestic airfares,
airport departure taxes or visa fees,
excess baggage charges, additional
nights during the trip due to flight
cancellations, alcoholic beverages
or bottled water, snacks, insurance
of any kind, laundry, phone calls,
radio calls or messages,
reconfirmation of flights and items
of personal nature. |
