Iquitos
Jungle Lodges
Excursions into the jungle fall into three key categories: jungle lodges, cruises, and camping. We elected for the first category which is great for wildlife viewing. There are a wide range of options available and many of the lodges are far from Iquitos. You typically have to take a boat or some form of river transport to get to your lodge as the area within 50 kilometers of the city is still considers “city jungle”. As we would pass by in our boats, there was no shortage of local Amazonians gawking at the strange tourists from beyond. Although they probably shouldn’t have, some of our companions gave the local children chocolate…next up donuts!
After much investigation, we decided to sign up with Explorama Lodges. This is a well established company that owns and operates lodges and is a sponsor of ACTS (Amazon Conservatory of Tropical Studies) which has a lab at the famed Canopy Walkway. Our trip included a trip to the Walkway and several lunch and dinner buffets!
We stayed at Ceiba Tops, Explorama’s most modern and largest lodge. There are 75 rooms and suites with airconditioning! If you don’t want to rough it, this is the lodge to book. Even though the lodge where we stayed was largely enclosed, there were signs of jungle life everywhere. It wasn’t uncommon for us to see birds that would come right up to us and try to feed on our leftovers. While we were at camp we had an opportunity to fish. Unfortunately I wasn’t very good. The natives seem to be able to catch fish with their fingers!
Some of the nearby wildlife is truly breathtaking. We hope much of it will remain but alas with deforestation of the Amazon occuring at an alarming rate, much of what we saw may not be around in 50 years…or less. Eighty kilometers away on the Amazon, near the Rio Napo, is the Explorama Lodge. This was one of the first lodges (1964) and is very “rustic”. That’s a euphemism for lots of bugs, open air toilets, air au naturael and lighting by kerosene. At this lodge, you can really experience even more of the jungle environs. We took a quick walk around the area and saw some pretty amazing wildlife.
