During our five days in the Amazon rainforest, we stayed at the
Posada Amazonas and the
Tambopata Research Center.
We flew from Cuzco to Port Maldonado, which is located on the
Tambopata river in southern Peru close to the border with
Bolivia. From there of us we rode against the current for one hour
to the Posada Amazonas. We remained there one night and in the morning after
seeing the famous giant
river otters on Chimbabas Lake, we rode against the current
another 5 hours to the Tambopata Research Center.
TRC is known to be the site of the largest macaw clay lick in the world. That is it
at dawn depicted in the
title of this page.
Our trip up the river was very eventful and we got to see lots of wildlife including
birds, caimans, and these cute lovable capybaras.
Capybara Mpeg Video (7.6mb)
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| It was difficult with our little automatic camera to take good pictures of wildlife or forest flora, but we were able to get some good shots of flowers
(who were kind enough to hold very still and let us get
really close!) |
| Here our guide for our Amazon adventure, Geraldine, shows us how to peel a yucca root.
It tastes like a starchy potato. The food at both Posada Amazonas and TRC was great!
Basic home style cooking; nothing fancy, but very tasty and nutrious. |
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In this shot, Gobind gets ready to observe the macaws at the clay lick at TRC. |
| I think the best part of our time in the Amazon was at TRC. They had a
raise and release program to try to re-establish macaws in the wild in the area.
There are now lots of wild macaws, but some of
the birds raised by humans decided they liked being around people. Now these half-tame "Chicos" hang around the Center especially in the mornings at the
breakfast table: |
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The Chicos like to help observe their wild cousins as well! |
| I even got a shot of some in the trees: |
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And we discovered that even though llamas don't like Powerbars, macaws certainly do:
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