Heath River Wildlife Centre itinerary
Day 1 Fly to Puerto Maldonado airport and transfer to the port on the Tambopata River. Here we board a motorized canoe for a four-and-a-half hour journey to the Heath River Wildlife Centre.
After descending the Tambopata River to the confluence with the larger Madre de Dios River, our boat heads east, downstream on the mighty Madre de Dios River, passing small gold prospecting barges before reaching the Peru-Bolivia border. This stretch of the Madre de Dios River is particularly attractive, as more than 75% of the riverbank is still covered by towering, virgin rainforest. We transfer to a smaller motorized canoe and head up the narrow Heath River, which forms the wilderness border between Peru and Bolivia, to arrive at the lodge.
Afternoon and evening walks to explore the forest surrounding the lodge in search for the various species of monkeys and hundreds of species of birds that make the rainforest home.
After dinner we visit to a small mammal clay lick if it is active.
Day 2 Early this morning we journey up the Heath River to the Macaw and Parrot Clay Lick. During the river trip upstream, we nearly always see one or two families of Capybaras on the banks of the river. At 120 pounds (55 kilograms), this simply gigantic relative of the guinea pig is the largest rodent in the world.
Once at our floating blind, our breakfast is served as we see several species of emerald-green and electric-blue parrots and the large blazing Red-and-Green Macaws that arrive in shifts to eat the clay. Note some macaw licks are less active in May, June, and early July than in the rest of the months of the year.
Late morning our native guides take us on an ethno-botanical walk through the forest, explaining how they use many of the forest trees and plants in their daily lives, either as medicines or for bows and arrows and in home construction.
After lunch and a short rest we go first by canoe then a short walk to a natural forest of towering, 170-foot-tall (55-metres-tall) Brazil nut trees to learn how the slight, yet surprisingly powerful, men of the village harvest these nuts, which fall from the treetops encased in rock-hard brown spheres the size of small grapefruits. Our Ese Eja Indian hosts have harvested these delicious, valuable nuts for thousands of years.
Day 3 Once again we rise before dawn and set off to the floating blind at the Macaw and Parrot Clay Lick.
Later in the morning we head back upstream on the Madre de Dios River to Sandoval Lake Lodge - located on the banks of the lake considered one of the most beautiful in the southern Amazon of Peru.
Arriving at the lake in the cool golden light of the late afternoon, we enter a flooded palm forest and drift beneath dozens (and often hundreds) of Red-bellied Macaws as they return to the palm forest for the night. At 500-800 birds, this flock of macaws at Sandoval Lake is currently the largest reported in the world for this highly-specialized macaw. We return to the lodge around nightfall for dinner.
Day 4 After a dawn breakfast, we explore the western end of the lake in the hope of encountering the family of nine Giant Otters that live in the lake.
Then our guide will take us hiking through the forest, and will bring the forest to life with stories of the rain forest and the medicinal uses of the plants.
Following lunch and a rest, in the late afternoon we once again board the catamaran and set off to explore the eastern end of the lake. Here we might see Brown Capuchin and Bolivian Squirrel Monkeys as they forage along the lakes' edge.
After dinner we can return to the catamaran to look for large Black Caiman.
Day 5 After a pre-dawn breakfast we return to Puerto Maldonado for the flight back to Cusco or Lima.
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