2001

On this portion of our Peru/Ecuador trip (see also the Machu Picchu and Galapagos Tabs) we flew into Puerto Maldonado, deep in the Amazon river basin where we embarked up the Tambopata River for two days via motorized canoe. Our destination was the Tambopata Research Station that we had read about in National Geographic many years ago (January 1994).  Here at the research station ornithologists and students have been studying the lives of the Macaw Parrots. This was the location of one of  the first ever discovered Clay Licks that attracted the parrots each day. The birds would flock to the clay cliff each morning at dawn to ingest the clay that contained minerals that would neutralize the toxins found in many of the fruit seeds that they ate.

In order to help finance the studies they created Rainforest Expeditions and expanded the station to be a small lodge for travellers like us. We spent an incredible few days here.