Our jungle trips are to the Manu Biosphere Reserve and the Tambopata-Condamo Reserve, two of the most biologically diverse places on earth and just a short trip from Cusco.

Manu Biosphere Reserve

The Manu National Park (1,716,295 hectares/4.5 million acres), located in the departments of Cusco and Madre de Dios, protects nearly 1,000 species of birds, 1,200 species of butterflies, 20,000 plants, 200 species of mammals, and 13 species of primates. Its surface area of varied habitats includes Andes highlands, cloud forests, and lowland tropical rainforests. The park encompasses an area of almost unimaginable diversity, climbing as it does from an altitude near sea level to elevations of 3,500m (11,480 ft.).
This natural paradise is officially recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site. In 1977, they designated Manu as a World Biosphere Reserve because it contains the best existing example of biodiversity in protected areas of rain forest and endemic cloud forest. Here we can observe a variety of animals in their natural habitats, including: Giant Otters, Black Caiman, the majestic Jaguar, the strange Spectacled Bear, the Tapir, and the Ocelot.
Manu Biosphere Reserve encompasses the least accessible and explored jungle of primary and secondary forest in Peru, and it is about as close as you're likely to come to virgin rainforest anywhere in the world. In fact, it's so remote that not only did the Spaniards, who found their way to virtually every corner of Peru except Machu Picchu, never enter the jungle, but the Incas, who created an empire that stretched from Ecuador to Chile, never conquered the region, either. The forest wasn't really penetrated until the late 1800s, when rubber barons and loggers set their sights on it. Peru declared it a national park in 1973.

Apart from the wildlife, the journey into the park itself is spectacular. Access to the entrance of the Manu Reserved Zone is normally by road from Cusco, a 2 day trip carrying you over the Andes at 4000m, past Inca ruins and down through cloud forest on the eastern side of the Andes into lush lowland rainforest. Roads remain largely unpaved and wind their way along precarious tracks cut into the mountain side and overlooking deep gorges. The trip is an adventure in itself.

Tambopata-Condamo Reserve Zone

Upriver from Puerto Maldonado, the Tambopata – Condamo Reserve Zone is one of the most extraordinary natural areas in all of South America. The Tambopata region is located in the least populated state and the most naturally preserved of Peru, Madre do Dios. Its remoteness, great size and extremely varied terrain have given it one of the highest diversity of plants and animals in the entire Amazon. The reserve is enormous, covering over 2.2 million acres of undisturbed and mostly uninhabited rainforest. It covers the entire watersheds of two rivers that rush down from the Andean highlands: the Rio Tavara and the Rio Candamo. Within boundaries of the reserve lies most of the watershed of a third large and very wildlife rich river: the Rio Tambopata.

Visits to jungle lodges owned by tour operators in Tambopata are generally more accessible than those in Manu, in terms of both cost and travel time. Primary lodges are those that travelers can get to the same day they arrive by plane in Puerto Maldonado. Although mankind's imprints are slightly more noticeable in Tambopata, the area is one of superb environmental diversity, with a dozen different types of forest and some gorgeous oxbow lakes.

TCRZ protects over 1,300 bird species (including 32 parrot species - 10% of the world's total), 200 mammal species, 90 frog species, 1,200 butterfly species and 10,000 species of higher plants.

The world's largest known mineral clay lick, where hundreds of parrots and macaws of up to 15 species congregate daily to ingest the detoxifying clay, is also within the reserve, less than 500 meters from Tambopata Research Center.