SANDOVAL LAKE LODGE
Tambopata - Peru
2 Days/1 Nights Program
Located a 25 minute motor canoe ride down the River Madre de Dios from Puerto Maldonado, Sandoval Lake Lodge is perched above what many rainforest specialists feel is the most attractive lake in Southern Peru, if not in the entire Peruvian Amazon.
The whole complex is housed in one structure and includes 25 double occupancy rooms (all with private baths), hot showers, and a spacious dining room overlooking the lake.
Day One:
Transfer from Puerto Maldonado airport to the river port on the Madre de Dios River. A 25 minute journey down the Madre de Dios River by motorized canoe brings you to the start of the trail in to Sandoval Lake Lodge. From here the trail takes you on a 2 mile walk or rickshaw ride through secondary forest, until we reach a small canal where we board canoes and are paddled 220 yards through a flooded forest of 100-foot tall Mauritia palms. As the canal opens onto the shimmering surface of the lake, we transfer to a catamaran and are leisurely paddled across half the lake to the lodge.
After lunch and a brief rest to avoid the early afternoon heat, we once again board the catamaran and set off to explore the entire west end of the lake. Here, in the flooded palm forest we drift to the sounds of hundreds of Red-Bellied Macaws as they return to the palm forest for the night. We return to the lodge around nightfall for dinner.
After dinner we will return to the canoes to look for the large and extremely rare Black Caimans. If it is a clear starlit night, we will also be able to float in the middle of the lake and marvel at the brillance of the sky.
Day Two:
After a dawn breakfast we take a final, shorter paddle around the west end of the lake to try and glimpse the Giant Otters before returning to Puerto Maldonado to catch the flight to Lima.