The Amazon Basin
![]() Welcome to a world of extraordinary biodiversity - 500 species of birds, 250 species of fish and a 100 species of mammals, including a dozen species of monkeys, live in this isolated region of the Amazon.
From Iquitos, Manu or Puerto Maldonado, Peru you have your choice of wilderness adventures. Some river lodges are more than a hundred miles up the Amazon River or its tributaries. On your journey, you may see pink dolphins, black caimans and the Amazon manatee. Several of the lodges are close to clay licks. Gorgeous macaws, parrots and parakeets come to the licks to eat clay: the clay neutralizes toxins in unripe fruit, allowing the birds to eat the fruit before it becomes attractive to other species. The Explorama Lodges offer a rain forest canopy walk. You can hike across a cable bridge suspended 120 feet above the rainforest. Another canopy walk is being planned by Reserva Amazonica. |
LINKS Reserva Amazonica Manu Wildlife Center Tambopata National Reserve Cover image of Amazon rain forest copyright Steven Holt/soaringseal.com. Image of Red-faced monkey copyright Patrick Roherty. |