Arrival & Reception by Guide
Posada Amazonas is a 30 bedroom lodge owned by the Community of Infierno and managed with Rainforest Expeditions. Thanks to its accesibility, excellent wildlife observation opportunities, cultural context and comfortable accommodations, Posada Amazonas is ideal for a two night introduction to Amazonia´s richest rain forests.
Posada Amazonas is located within the territory of the Infierno Community. It is built within the 2,000 hectare, private, communal reserve, which in turn is directly adjacent to the Tambopata National Reserve.
To get there you must fly to Puerto Maldonado from Lima or Cusco on daily commercial flights lasting 45 or 90 minutes respectively. From the airport you are transported by truck to the Infierno River Port where you board our boats for a forty five minute trip to Posada Amazonas. Posada Amazonas is located ten minutes walking from the river.
Posada Amazonas is built using a combination of traditional native materials (wood, palm fronds, wild cane and clay) and architecture and modern day eco-lodge technology. The lodge itself consists of a complex of four sections: rooms, dining area and kitchen, relaxation area and internal support facilities. The entire roof of the lodge is constructed using high quality crisneja palm fronds, whereas the floors are of tropical mahogany. The rooms complex is built of four 9 X 24 meter structures with six rooms per facility, for a total of 30 bedrooms.
The rooms are 7 x 4 meters so they can comfortably hold three beds, although most are set up for two. The walls dividing each room are built using cane, and extend from the floor to about 2.5 meters height making each room private. The side that looks out to the forest does not have a wall or screening of any kind, acting as a large window facing the forest. The reason we have been able to incorporate this “luxurious” design into our lodge is because mosquitos are not really a problem around the lodge clearing and the open section allows for an intimate contact with the rain forest. A second small window on the opposite side, set up very high, keeps the rooms well ventilated. Doors are replaced with drapes. Rooms are not soundproof.
Each room has a private bathroom with cold water only. Rooms and bathrooms are separated by drapes. Each room has beds, mosquito nets, bedside tables and hammocks or lounge chairs. Rooms are decorated with bas- relief wood-carvings representing stories and characters from Ese-eja traditions.
Common areas are open and spacey and offer ample area for resting and socializing. They include a dining room and bar, a reception lounge with souvenir shop, and an interpretation center.
Tres Chimbadas Oxbow Lake
Parrot Clay Lick
Brazil Nut Trail and Camp
Transfer Boat – Posada Amazonas to Tambopata River Port
Our programs
Our suggested programs focus on providing an overview of life in the rain forest combining nature and culture. This program is for those looking for a short introductory stay in the Amazon basin for 2 nights. Visit an ethnobotanical center and an oxbow lake, among other activities. Explore the Tambopata for three nights and gain more depth. Learn about the importance of Brazil nuts for the conservation of the rain forest, visit a parrot claylick and get a view of the rain forest canopy from our tower. Walk the trails, visit the Ñape medicinal garden, the Tres Chimbadas oxbow lake, enjoy some hammock time and experience some days at this lodge in the middle of the Infierno Comunity private reserve.
Example itinerary
Day 1: Arrival & Reception by Guide
Our guides are biologists, tourism professionals, or community members. Unless noted otherwise, our guides speak English. We assign guides at 10:1 ratio in Posada Amazonas. This means groups smaller than 10 people will be merged with other groups under one guide. If you would like a private guide or a guide in a language other than English please let us know.
Transfer Airport to Puerto Maldonado Headquarters
Upon arrival from Lima or Cusco, we will welcome you at the airport and drive you ten minutes to our Puerto Maldonado headquarters. While enjoying your first taste of the forest in our gardens we will ask you to pack only the necessary gear for your next few days, and leave the rest at our safe deposit. This helps us keep the boats and cargo light.
Transfer Pto Maldonado Headquarters to Tambopata River Port
Skirting Puerto Maldonado, we drive 20 kilometers to the Tambopata River Port, entering the Native Community of Infierno. The port is a communal business.
Boxed Lunch
Transfer Boat – Tambopata River Port to Posada Amazonas
The forty five minute boat ride from the Tambopata Port to Posada Amazonas will take us into the Community´s Primary Forest Private Reserve.
Orientation
Upon arrival, the lodge manager will welcome you and brief you with important navigation and security tips.
Canopy Tower
A twenty minute walk from Posada Amazonas leads to the 30 meter scaffolding canopy tower. A bannistered staircase running through the middle provides safe access to the platforms above. From atop you obtain spectacular views of the vast expanses of standing forest cut by the Tambopata River winding through the middle. Now and then toucans, parrots or macaws are seen flying against the horizon, or mixed species canopy flocks land in the treetop next to you.
Dinner
Ecotourism Lecture
A daily presentation on the Infierno ecotourism project is available every night from a staff member.
Overnight at Posada Amazonas
Day 2: Tres Chimbadas Oxbow Lake
Tres Chimbadas is thirty minutes by boat and forty five minutes hiking from Posada Amazonas. Once there you will paddle around the lake in a catamaran, searching for the resident family of nine giant river otters (seen by 60% of our lake visitors) and other lakeside wildlife such as caiman, hoatzin and horned screamers. Otters are most active from dawn to eight or nine AM.
Lunch
Ethnobotanical Tour
A twenty minute boat drive downriver leads you to a trail designed by the staff of the Centro Ñape. The Centro Ñape is a communal organization that produces medicines out of forest plants and administers them to patients who choose their little clinic. They have produced a trail which explains the different medicinal (and other) uses of selected plants.
Dinner
Night walk
You will have the option of hiking out at night, when most of the mammals are active but rarely seen. Much easier to find are frogs with shapes and sounds as bizarre as their natural histories.
Overnight at Posada Amazonas
Day 3: Parrot Clay Lick
This clay lick is only a twenty minute walk from Posada Amazonas. From a blind located about twenty meters away you will see dozens of parrots and parakeets descend on most clear mornings to ingest the clay on a river bank. Species such as Mealy and Yellow- headed Amazon, Blue-headed Parrot and Dusky headed Parakeet descend at this clay lick. The clay lick is active at dawn, during the late mornings and mid-afternoons.
Breakfast
Ceiba Trail Hike
We leave from the lobby at Posada Amazonas and embark on a two hour hike crowned by the largest tree in the vicinity: a giant ceiba tree. During the hike we will focus on the natural history of the rain forest and its principal taxonomic groups.
Lunch
Farm Visit
A thirty minute boat drive downriver takes us to the most complete farm in the community of Infierno. The owner grows a diverse variety of popular and unknown Amazon crops. In his garden, just about every plant and tree serves a purpose.
Dinner
Overnight at Posada Amazonas
Day 4: Brazil Nut Trail and Camp
A few minutes hike from the lodge is a beautiful old growth patch of Brazil Nut forest that has been harvested for decades (if not centuries) where the precarious remains of a camp used two months a year by Brazil Nut gatherers can still be experienced. We will be demonstrating the whole process of the rain forest’s only sustainably harvested product from collection through transportation to drying.
Lunch
Overlook Walk
This 2 km trail will bring us along the Tambopata River. We will be able to clearly separate a Terra Firme Forest from a Secondary Forest after this walk, as the trail crosses both habitats. Resting on the benches we can witness the Tambopata on its unhurried journey across the lowland rainforest.
Dinner
Overnight at Posada Amazonas
Day 5: Transfer Boat – Posada Amazonas to Tambopata River Port
Transfer Tambopata River Port to Pto Maldonado Headquarters
Transfer Puerto Maldonado Headquarters to Airport
We retrace our river and road journey back to Puerto Maldonado, our office and the airport. Depending on airline schedules, this may require dawn departures.
