As soon as you head to the Iquitos airport parking lot waiting area, you will find a representative of Tahuayo (wearing a T-shirt with the head of a hoatzin bird, Tahuayo’s logo). Later, take a 4-hour boat ride across the Amazon River and the Tahuayo Tributary, feeling the wilderness that surrounds you at the largest rainforest in the world.

Once at Tahuayo Lodge, meet your guide, who will join you on this journey. They will listen to your interests and expectations about the Amazon Rainforest and offer you the tours available during the season. The Lodge offers morning, afternoon, evening and night excursions, which include hikes, boat rides, canoe trips, birdwatching, and more.

Today, have breakfast and meet up with your guide to decide what tours you are going to take today. Here are some tour options you can take at Tahuayo main lodge:

Widlife: The Amazon is famous for its diverse and exuberant flora and fauna, making it one of the most seek after destinations for nature lovers. Hike into the nearby varzea forest to see monkeys such as black tamarins, saddleback tamarins, tiny pygmy marmosets, owl monkeys; birds like trogons, dancing and fast-moving wire-tailed manakins, and other animals like yellow-crowned brush-tailed rats. Pink river dolphins are a huge highlight in this part of the Amazon, and you will be able to see them by riding a motorboat through Lake Charo, where adorable squirrel monkeys, sloths, and other animals can be seen.

Adventure: The pureness and virgin areas of the Amazon offer challenge irresistible for the adventurous type! Walk through canopy platforms or ride a zip line to get a perspective of the rainforest from above, or board a motorboat joined by curious woolly monkeys going through the canopy. These animals are used to human contact and love eating bananas! You can also explore a terra firme forest, where you can hike into the ‘Frog Valley,’ so-called due to the brightly-colored dart frogs that inhabit it. You can also board a canoe through Lake Tapaje, venture into a bat cave, or go fishing for carnivorous piranhas.

Culture: Share experiences with people that are in permanent contact with the wild rainforest. Visit the native village of El Chino, see the handicrafts made by an artisan cooperative, have a spiritual session with a local shaman, or learn about rural life and cultivation methods at a farm or a school.

Staying at Tahuayo Lodge enables you to visit the Amazon Research Center Lodge, which can be accessed by boat. This area was designed as a long-term conservation initiative undertaken in consultation with government offices in Iquitos (Loreto, Peru), Ivy-League Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and the Botanical Gardens of Missouri and Chicago. During the ride, stop to see animals such as bats, sloths, monkeys, and toucans.

You can spot animals in their natural habitat by following the hiking trails, measuring a total of 100 km (62 mi) divided into grids to facilitate the scientists’ work identifying and keeping control of animals population.

The ecosystems to be found here include bajial, palm swamps, high and low resting, and terra firme. Among the monkey species living here, it is possible to see squirrel monkeys, pygmy marmosets, saki monkeys, brown and white capuchins, titi monkeys, saddleback tamarins, moustached tamarins, and uakaris, although these last ones are hardly ever seen. Giant tayra weasels, jaguars (very difficult to see) and tamadua anteaters also make up this exotic fauna. Taking a boat excursion gives you the chances to see caimans and giant river otters, which have become highly endangered species.

One of the most remarkable animals in the Amazon are the hoatzins, some bird that hold a pre-historic feature: claws on their wings to defend themselves from the predators. These can be found at Lake Yarina, along with charismatic blue and yellow macaws and howler monkeys.

In the morning, return to Tahuayo Lodge to board a boat to the town of Iquitos. Contemplate the vastness of the river one more time, and use the observation techniques you have acquired to spot animals on your way.

Upon arrival in Iquitos, transfer to the airport to fly to your next destination in Peru or other country of South America.