Legacy of the Incas
Amazon Tours & Travel
Machu Picchu - Lake
Titicaca
(11
days/10 nights)
Sacred Sites of the Incas
Amazon Tours & Travel
Machu Picchu - Lake
Titicaca
(12 days/11 nights)
Empire of the Sun
Amazon Tours & Travel
Machu Picchu - Lake
Titicaca
(14 days/13 nights)
Ancient Civilizations of Peru
Amazon Tours & Travel
Colca Canyon - Machu
Picchu
Lake Titicaca
(16 days/15 nights)
Archaeological & Ecological
Treasures
Amazon Tours & Travel
Galapagos - Machu Picchu
Lake Titicaca (or Amazon)
(18 days/17
nights)
Grand Tour of the Inca Empire
Amazon Tours & Travel
Colca Canyon - Amazon
Machu Picchu - Lake Titicaca
(22 days/21 nights)
Ancient & Colonial Capitals
Amazon Tours & Travel
Machu Picchu
(10
days/9 nights)
Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
Amazon Tours & Travel
Machu Picchu
(13 days/12 nights)
Machu Picchu & Galapagos
Amazon Tours & Travel
Machu Picchu - Galapagos
(15 days/14 nights)
Galapagos & Machu Picchu
Amazon Tours & Travel
Galapagos - Machu Picchu
(18 days/17 nights)
Amazon
Bio-Trip
Amazon Tours & Travel
Manu National Park
(8 days/7 nights)
Enchanted
Isles of the Galapagos
Amazon Tours & Travel
Galapagos
(11
days/10 nights)
Galapagos & the Kingdom of Quito
Amazon Tours & Travel
Galapagos - Andes
(16 days/15 nights)
Galapagos
& the Amazon
Amazon Tours & Travel
Galapagos - Amazon
(16 days/15 nights)
Historic Haciendas of the Andes
Amazon Tours & Travel
Cotopaxi - Antisana
- Otavalo
(7 days/6 nights)
© 2010
Inka's Empire Corporation.
All rights reserved.
Amazon Tours & Travel
Amazon Rainforest of Peru, Ecuador & Brazil
Blue-and-Gold Macaw, Heath River, Amazon Rainforest, Peru.
Photo: Mylene d'Auriol Stoessel. Amazon Tours & Travel.
Saving the Amazon Rainforest in style...
-- Kimberly Fay, LuxuryLink.com, April 2005
Manu
Cock-of-the-Rock
At the same time our Amazon lodges are providing extraordinary wildlife encounters, they are guarding rare species. Each lodge has been built in a place of ecological importance by South American conservationists. Each is established in association with the indigenous people to protect and support their natural reserves. All have naturalists and native guides who will show you the diverse flora and fauna, and how it forms the most complex -- and fragile -- ecosystem on earth. All enhance the wilderness experience without compromising its authenticity. When you stay in these "Guardians of the Rainforest", all of their profits and a portion of ours go to save the Amazon.
Red-and-Green Macaws at the clay lick, Manu, Amazon Rainforest, Peru.
Photo: Mylene d'Auriol Stoessel. Amazon Tours & Travel.
A naturalist's tour-de-force...
-- Ellen Douglas, LuxuryLink.com, July 2004
3 Nights
Manu Wildlife Center, Amazon Rainforest, Peru
Location: Adjacent to the eastern border of Peru's 4.5-million-acre Manu National Park and the northern border of the 1-million-acre Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, a national protected area. Reserve size: 29,000 acres. Wildlife it protects: Jaguars, Lowland Tapirs, Harpy Eagles, five species of macaws, Black Caimans, Giant Otters and 11 species of monkeys.
By far the richest, most extraordinary biological transect in the Amazon, or the world, starts in Cuzco and runs northeast by road and river to the great Manu Wilderness. Manu offers by far the greatest quantity and diversity of animals and plants in the world. No other destination in Peru or beyond can compare. Nowhere else can you enjoy superbly intact tropical habitats from Andean grasslands and cloud forests down to foothill and lowland forests.
Manu boasts the highest bird, mammal and plant diversity of any park on Earth, including 1,000 of the world's 9,700 bird species, 200 species of mammals and 15,000 species of flowering plants. The most photogenic spectacles are frolicking Giant Otters, 1,000 parrots and macaws at a riverbank clay lick, dancing Cocks-of-the-Rock, 11 species of monkeys and huge Lowland Tapirs at a forest clay lick. Manu Wildlife Center currently offers the world's finest viewing of this elusive animal, which elsewhere is harder to see even than the Jaguar, which also is a frequent sight in Manu.
In terms of wildlife for your money, our Manu itineraries offer the greatest payoff of wildlife per dollar of any rain forest site in Latin America. Other New World rain forests may be somewhat less expensive than Manu, but none of them offer Manu's tremendous wildlife diversity. For travelers who want the finest rainforest experiences in the world, Manu offers the ultimate "bio-trip". All trips start and end in Cuzco and include all air and ground transport, food, lodging and guided rainforest outings.
Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, Manu Cloud Forest, Manu National Park.
Photo: Peru Verde. Amazon Tours & Travel.Witness the elaborate mating dance of the blazing-scarlet Cocks-of-the-Rock...
-- Ellen Douglas, LuxuryLink.com, July 2004
Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge, Amazon Rainforest, Peru
Location: Peru Verde Cloud Forest Reserve, Manu Cloud Forest, Peru. Reserve size: 11,000 acres. Wildlife it protects: Andean Cocks-of-the-Rock, Common Woolly and Brown Capuchin Monkeys, Spectacled Bears, cloud-forest birds and orchids.
The Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge is located in the pristine Manu Cloud Forest on the verdant eastern slopes of the Andes. Opened in 1997, it is named after the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, Peru's large, bright-red national bird that puts on a colorful, noisy mating display adjacent to the lodge every morning. Spectacled Bears, Woolly Monkeys, Brown Capuchin Monkeys, quetzals and a host of other colorful birds inhabit the surrounding forest, and a bubbling mountain stream tumbles past the lodge.
Situated at an elevation of 5,000 feet (1,600 meters) in the cool, mosquito-free Kosñipata Valley, close to the wild Cusco-Shintuya road, the lodge protects and supports a 11,000-acre private cloud forest reserve. It consists of 10 bungalows and a separate complex with a large dining room. A local highland family staffs the lodge, and they also work as rangers, patrolling the private reserve.
Accommodation is in the double-occupancy bungalows, each of which has a spacious interior, private bathroom, screened windows with mosquito nets and its own balcony. Meals are served on the fully screened dining platform. The lodge cook prepares hearty dishes using fresh fruits, vegetables, grains and meat. Vegetarian and other special diets can be provided upon request.
The incredible 110-mile drive from Cuzco to the lodge passes through the finest transect of Andean habitats in South America. The drive typically lasts 8 hours, including stops in Andean towns and opportunities to walk and experience on foot the upper cloud forest habitat. Often we will take even more time to savor the unforgettable scenery, excellent birding and abundant cloud forest flora.
Madre de Dios River,
Tambopata National Reserve.
Photo: Mylene d'Auriol Stoessel. Amazon Tours & Travel.
The largest uninhabited and unhunted rainforest
in the Amazon...
Heath River Wildlife Center, Amazon Rainforest, Peru
Location: Heath River, adjacent to the northern tip of Bolivia's 4.7-million-acre Madidi National Park and across the river from Peru's 2.7-million-acre Bahuaja-Sonene National Park. Reserve size: 25,000 acres. Wildlife it protects: Jaguars, Lowland Tapirs, Maned Wolves, Marsh Deer, Harpy Eagles, six species of macaws and Giant Otters.
Only four hours by river from the Puerto Maldonado airport, Heath River Wildlife Center is the gateway to the largest uninhabited and unhunted rainforest in the Amazon. An immensely photogenic macaw clay lick, capybaras, oxbow lakes with Giant Otters, hundreds of bird and mammal species and a lodge 100%-owned by the Ese'eja Indians of Sonene make the Heath the best combination of nature and culture in the entire Amazon. No other lodge in Tambopata is 100% owned and operated by a community of lowland Indians.
Every person in Sonene speaks the original indigenous language, with Spanish being a distant second used mostly in school and to trade with outsiders and, now, to chat with pampered guests. Women from Sonene hold daily crafts workshops at the lodge, teaching visitors tribal traditions handed down through the millennia.
Though authentic in its architecture, the lodge in Sonene does not sacrifice comfort in the least. Guests enjoy roomy, private, double-occupancy bungalows with electric fans and en-suite facilities with hot showers. The combination of the most accessible and most photogenic large macaw lick and the warmth and uniquely traditional hospitality of our Indian hosts make Heath River Wildlife Center and Sandoval Lake Lodge the Amazon's best value in wildlife and authentic rainforest adventure.
Programs of 3, 4 or 5 nights. All can be combined with the Sandoval Lake Lodge.
Flooded Mauritia palm forest, Sandoval Lake, Amazon Rainforest, Peru.
Photo: Mylene d'Auriol Stoessel. Amazon Tours & Travel.
The most beautiful and wildlife-rich of all lakes
in the Tambopata-Madidi Wilderness...
Sandoval Lake Lodge, Amazon Rainforest, Peru
Location: Lake Sandoval, Tambopata National Reserve, Peru. Reserve size: 100 acres within the 627,000-acre Tambopata National Reserve. Wildlife it protects: Giant Otters, Black Caimans, Red-bellied Macaws, Brown Capuchin, Squirrel and Titi Monkeys.
Located deep in Peru's Tambopata National Reserve, Sandoval Lake Lodge overlooks sparkling, palm-rimmed Sandoval Lake, the most beautiful and wildlife-rich of all lakes in the Tambopata-Madidi Wilderness. This privileged location gives you exclusive access to the lake in the early morning and late afternoon, the choice hours for wildlife viewing and photography. No other lodge in Tambopata-Madidi is on the banks of a protected oxbow lake.
Our short Sandoval Lake Lodge program includes two nights of fully-screened accommodation in 25 double-occupancy rooms complete with en-suite facilities with hot-water showers, electricity, fans, meals, airport transfers in Puerto Maldonado, naturalist guides, lake excursions by day in search of Giant Otters, monkeys and macaws, forest excursions, night excursions in search of caimans, and evening slide shows. The lodge specializes in small groups and individualized attention in its overriding quest to conserve the lake and surrounding rainforest. Sandoval Lake Lodge is built out of ecologically-correct driftwood mahogany and is owned jointly by a nonprofit conservation group and five families of indigenous Brazil nut collectors.
Tours of 3, 4 or 5 nights. All are combined with the Heath River Wildlife Center.
Napo Wildlife Center,
Yasuní National Park, Amazon Rainforest, Ecuador.
Photo: Peter
English. Amazon Tours & Travel.
Napo Wildlife Center lies inside the two-and-a-half-million acre
Yasuní National Park... a Unesco Biosphere Reserve...
-- Connie Rogers, Feathers, Fur and Jungle Waters, The New York Times, August 1, 2004
Napo Wildlife Center, Amazon Rainforest, Ecuador
Location: Añangu Reserve, Yasuní National Park, Ecuador. Reserve size: 52,000 acres within the 2.5-million-acre Yasuní National Park. Wildlife it protects: 562 bird species (including Scarlet Macaws and Mealy Amazon Parrots), Giant Otters, Jaguars, Black Caimans, Harpy Eagles, Crested Eagles, Common Woolly Monkeys, Black Spider Monkeys and nine other primates.
The Amazon Basin is famous for its wildlife, but not for its creature comforts. With the Napo Wildlife Center, you get the best of both worlds.
Here, you can see thousands of parrots at the two, nearby parrot clay licks, Giant Otters in the lake and streams, 11 species of monkeys in the trees and over 550 species of birds in the forest. When your day is done, you can take a hot shower, sit on your private porch overlooking the lake, have a cold beer from the bar and enjoy a healthy international dinner. This is the jungle in style.
From start to finish, the Napo Wildlife Center combines creature comforts with incredible wildlife. Bilingual guides explain the intricacies of the rainforest while the staff works to make your stay the trip of a lifetime. And why wouldn't they? They are not only your staff but also major stockholders of the lodge!
In addition to being the best wildlife lodge in the Amazon of Ecuador, the Napo Wildlife Center also conserves 82 square miles of pristine rainforest in its private reserve, based on a conservation partnership with the local community.
Wild Jaguar, Pantanal, Central Western Brazil.
Photo: Jaguar Research Center. Amazon Tours & Travel.
Never before have Jaguars and humans lived in such peace and harmony...
Jaguar Research Center, Pantanal, Brazil.
Location: Meeting-of-the-Waters State Park, Pantanal, Brazil. Reserve size: 270,000 acres. Wildlife it protects: Jaguars, Brazilian Tapirs, Giant Otters, Brown Capuchin Moneys, Black and Gold Howler Monkeys, Silvery Marmosets and 82 species of large birds, including Agami Herons, Black-collared Hawks, Sunbitterns, Sungrebes, Bare-faced Curassows, Great Potoos, Jabiru Storks and a profusion of other water and forest birds.
Located in central-western Brazil, the Pantanal is a UK-sized mosaic of seasonally-flooded savannahs and tropical forests that features the finest wildlife viewing in Latin America. This area harbors a world-record 82 species of large birds, thousands of which can be seen during a one-hour drive on the raised Transpantaneira Road, the only all-season route that penetrates the heart of this enormous wildland. The Pantanal harbors 4,000-7,000 Jaguars, including the heaviest specimens in the world. A male Jaguar in our region recently weighed in at 310 pounds (144 kilos).
At the end of the Transpantaneira Road winds a labyrinth of rivers on which our specially-trained trackers and boatmen have shown Jaguars to guests 397 times in 220 guest days in the 2007 and 2008 dry seasons. This location is the site of the 270,000-acre Meeting-of-the-Waters State Park, one of the three largest protected areas in the entire Pantanal. No other location in the world can offer anything like this number of Jaguars per day. Most guests also see Tapirs and Giant Otters. Never before, anywhere, in the history of the world have Jaguars and humans lived in such peace and harmony. Come see our Jaguars and make history. Most of the Jaguars in this huge "Jaguar park" appear over and over again, and we now have both a complete face dossier of the 15 most frequently-seen cats and a growing number of data points that allow us to map the overlapping territories of these mighty cats.
Read about the Jaguar Research Center
Hyacinth Macaw, Hyacinth
Cliffs, Amazon Rainforest, Brazil.
Photo: Pete Oxford. Amazon Tours & Travel.
Recently scientists caught a glimpse of wild monkeys
using tools in a surprisingly sophisticated way.
-- Jennifer Steinberg Holland
Tool Time, Monkey Style, National Geographic Magazine, January 2004
Hyacinth Cliffs, Amazon Rainforest, Brazil
Location: Parnaíba Headwaters National Park, Brazil. Reserve size: 19,000 acres within and adjacent to the 1.8-million-acre Parnaíba Headwaters National Park. Wildlife it protects: Hyacinth Macaws, Red-and-Green Macaws, Blue-and-Gold Macaws, Burrowing Owls, Great Potoos, Maned Wolves, Jaguars, tool-using Brown Capuchin Monkeys and Black-and-Gold Howler Monkeys.
Every half century or so, an amazing new wildlife destination bursts onto the South American scene. Such is the case for Hyacinth Cliffs of the sunny, dry forests of central Brazil. No other destination in Brazil offers so much charismatic wildlife in so little time -- and with so much comfort.
This new lodge complex is located at Brazil's new, 1.8-million-acre Parnaiba Headwaters National Park. At one-third the size of New Jersey, this park is Brazil's largest park outside the Amazon and protects far more dry tropical forest than any other reserve on Earth. Only 10% of the world's original dry tropical forest remains today, while half of all wet tropical forest still stands, so the Parnaiba Headwaters National Park is of exceptional conservation importance.
From the comfort of Hyacinth Cliffs, you can see some of the most exciting wildlife in Brazil. The Park harbors more than 1,500 Hyacinth Macaws -- 50-100 times more than any other national park. It also is the most important reserve for the endangered Maned Wolf, which is the world's largest and most beautiful wild canid. Finally, Parnaiba Park is the only place on Earth where Brown Capuchin Monkeys demonstrate the world's most complex tool use by nonhuman primates. This incredible display of intelligence was reported for the first time in 2004, initially in National Geographic Magazine and then worldwide in a BBC TV documentary. There is only one place to see all of these amazing creatures, and that is Hyacinth Cliffs.
Golden Lion Tamarin, lowland forest north of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Photo: Mariana Munn. Amazon Tours & Travel.
A vast sinkhole falls precipitously into the Earth, holding within it a galaxy of Red-and-Green Macaws that live in the cavities of the pink sandstone walls. High in the Andes, a lost world of volcanos, lagoons and grasslands gives sanctuary to the endangered Andean Condor, threatened species of flamingos, important populations of wild camelids and other unique wildlife. In the Atlantic coastal forest near Rio, the amazing Golden Lion Tamarins have been rescued from near extinction. Normally it is hard to get the conservation biologists to open the site even to scientists, but we know how to get it open for you -- and you will observe these rare creatures face to face. Our expeditions to nature's secret places only are possible thanks to the lifelong research and exclusive access of Dr. Charles A. Munn, noted ornithologist and pioneer of conservation through ecotourism. Our extreme nature experiences are reserved for just a few scientists, special film crews, professional photographers and you. If your quest is to experience nature's rarest wildlife, Arcana Mundi is the place to begin.
© 2010 Inka's Empire Corporation, Luxury Peru Tours & Travel. All rights reserved.
