Scarlet macaws congregate at the giant clay lick near the Tambopata Research Center

Tourists have a wild time of the feathered kind at the Tambopata Research Center

WE STOOD on the white sand beach of the Tambopata River, across from a cliff over 160 feet tall and 1600 feet long. From a nearby tree two brilliantly colored scarlet macaws flew over our heads.

It was our first morning at the Tambopata Research Center, a combination tourist lodge and macaw research facility located deep in jungles of southeastern Peru, and we had crawled out of bed at 5 a.m. to see the famous giant clay lick.

Hundreds of parrots gather each dawn to nibble on this massive stretch of exposed riverbank. It’s the largest known clay lick in the world and the only one where you can see the three big macaws--green-winged, scarlet, and blue-and-gold--at once.

Scientists believe the clay is loaded with minerals that detoxify poisonous seeds from the parrots’ favorite rainforest trees.

Getting to the lick from the TRC requires a short ride to the opposite side of the river in a motorized canoe. From there you can see the full palette of blue, red, yellow and green parrot colors on the cliff.

It was almost mid-morning, the time when parrots arrive on the lick en masse after spending a couple of hours in nearby rainforest, socializing and scoping out the area for danger.

One of the friendly scarlets swooped over our group of 20 tourists and guides again. It seemed to be surveying the situation, thinking perhaps, "Is that Jack, the human who played with me when I was just a fledgling?"

The next thing I knew the bird was on my shoulder. Did she remember after all these years? I think so, and she just wanted to say "hello" and to show me what a beautiful macaw she had grown up to be since our first meeting in 1993.

She casually perched for a minute or two, then with powerful wing beats took off to rejoin her friends in the tree tops.

Friendly natives
Close encounters of the feathered kind are commonplace at the Tambopata Research Center. When I visited the first time, eight and a half years ago, three green-wing macaws landed on the beach beside me and joined me on a stroll.

I had returned to the TRC at the invitation of Eduardo Nycander of Rainforest Expeditions, a tour group that owns the TRC.

The TRC is looking for sponsors-in my case to help develop artificial nest boxes for blue-throated macaws in Bolivia--so this time Eduardo picked up my room tab (although not my air fare).

The trip included a few days spent first at the Posada Amazonas, a new tourist lodge Rainforest Expeditions manages. Built in 1998, the Posada serves as a convenient stopover to break up the long 8-hour canoe trip to the TRC.

A hard day’s night
It can be a long, tiring journey to the jungle lodges of Peru, especially if you’re traveling from the West Coast. The first leg of our journey had begun four days earlier when Karen and I left Portland on a 7 a.m. American Airlines flight. After a three-hour layover in Dallas, we departed for Lima at 4:30 p.m. and arrived at the Jorge Chavez Lima-Callao International Airport at 11:30 that night, a few minutes ahead of schedule.

The next leg of the trip, a 90-minute flight to the bustling river port of Puerto Maldonado, began at 6 the next morning. It hardly seemed worth taking a $50 roundtrip taxi ride into Lima and paying up to $100 more for a few hours’ sleep in a decent hotel, so we decided to spend the night in the airport.

If you do the same, here's a tip: Remain in the arrival area, where they have nice comfortable sofas. All you’ll find in the departure area are those hard plastic airport chairs.

Large motorized canoes ferry tourists and researchers up the Tambopata River.

Accommodations in Peru range from expensive five-star hotels to budget lodges I would give one faded star in some cases, if that. On the way back to the States a week and a half later, I found out we could have stayed at the Hotel Manhattan, a reasonably priced hotel about five minutes from the airport.

We arrived in Puerto Maldonado at 8:30 a.m. the next morning after a stopover in historical Cusco, famous for its ancient stone architecture and Incan ruins. A shuttle delivered us from our 727 to the banks of the murky Tambopata River, where 15-person canoes powered by outboard motors wait to transport tourists.

Except for a couple of restless hours on the airport sofas, we had been up almost continuously for 24 hours and were growing weary from lack of sleep. Fortunately, our journey was almost over. It’s only a two-hour canoe ride from Puerto Maldonado to Posada Amazonas, our first stop in the jungle.

No hot water, no problem
Posado Amazonas is the newest of six tourist lodges located along the Tambopata River en route to the Tambopata Research Center. You can make any of these lodges your final destination, or use them as stopovers before continuing on to the TRC, another five hours by canoe.

Posada Amazonas is located in the 24,700-acre Ese’eja Native Community of Infierno, a village of about 400 Andean immigrants and older mestizo settlers.

It’s one of a handful of Peruvian lodges that practices cultural integration: locals built it using native materials, including tropical mahogany, palm fronds and cane, and they receive 60 percent of the operation profits according to Rainforest Expeditions, who pockets the rest for managing the facility.

The Posada’s rooms are large, at 22 feet by 13 feet, and have private bathrooms. There is no hot water, but this isn’t as inconvenient as you might imagine. After traipsing in the hot, humid jungle all day we found the tepid showers, probably between 70 and 80 degrees, very refreshing.

Like most lodges deep in the jungle, the Posada has no electricity, either; you’ll want to bring your own flashlight and extra batteries (which you’ll need to repack for disposal).

The rooms are sparsely appointed but comfortable, including two double beds, a low bench for your luggage and a bedside table for a candle.

To give guests a real rainforest experience each room’s outer wall is mostly open to the jungle-no glass, screen or even a curtain. But not to worry: the area is relatively insect-free and at night the maids pull mosquito netting over the beds.

That said, yellow fever shots are required for traveling to Peru and malaria pills are recommended. In addition, I always take a good insect repellent, sunscreen, Gold Bond anti-itch cream, A+D ointment for cuts and burns, and Preparation H (no, not for that--it also soothes insect bites).

Peruvian “box lunches”
Like most Latin American eco-lodges, Posada Amazonas goes out of its way to provide a pleasant dining experience. The buffet meals include local cuisine of beans, plantains and rice, as well as what is commonly called "international"-essentially Western food. Food and bottled water arrives along with guests via canoe.

One of my favorite on-the-go meals in the rainforest is a rice concoction wrapped in a large bijao leaf--an indigenous people's "box lunch”.

There’s plenty for the nature lover to do at Posada Amazonas. A small but busy clay lick is a 15-minute hike away. Smaller parrots, including blue-headed pionus, the highly endangered blue-headed macaw, and several types of Amazon parrots visit early in the morning, with green-winged macaws arriving later.

Stairway to heaven
A rainforest vacation isn’t complete without a vertical trip into the canopy. Posada, not to be outdone by any of the other nearby lodges, offers a 114-foot-high observation tower located about a short trail hike away.

You climb to the top of the six-story tower using an internal bannistered stair case. Several observation decks at the top offer breathtaking views of birds as they fly over the trees and seasonal flowers.

A six-story tower at Posada Amazonas affords spectacular views of the surrounding rainforest.

You can see for miles over the flat canopy. It’s over 4000 miles to the Atlantic Ocean via the Amazon River, but the elevation is only 1200 feet. It’s no wonder the rivers continually change course, creating oxbow lakes like the one at Posada Amazonas.

You can see herons and egrets along the lake’s edges and if you’re lucky, a family of endangered giant river otters. But bring binoculars: Rainforest Expeditions leaves half the lake undisturbed; all we saw were the otters’ sleek heads bobbing at a distance.

After three days of stopping by the clay lick each morning, viewing magnificent sunsets from the tower, bird watching on the lake and hiking the trails around the lodge, it was time to pack up and head for our final destination, the Tambopata Research Center.

Bird lovers’ paradise
While the Posada Amazonas offers tourists a touch of the rainforest while they visit Peru, true parrot nuts will want to go the extra mile--or in this case, the extra five-hour boat ride-to the Tambopata Research Center.

Founded in 1989 by Dr. Charlie Munn, a senior field biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, the TRC began as a way post for scientists to study the nesting and foraging habits of blue-and-gold, green-winged and scarlet macaws, with some space set aside for tourists.

The goal: develop programs to protect wild macaw populations, dwindling throughout most of South America due to hunting, habitat destruction and the pet trade, while at the same time create public support for the birds’ plight by giving tourists an up-close look.

The first several seasons of studying macaws at the TRC taught the scientists two things: less than 20 percent of macaws bred any one year due to lack of nesting sites, and that even when they did, only one egg out of three made it to adulthood.

So in the early 1990s, researchers began to rescue some of the youngest chicks from nests and hand raise them. They nicknamed the babies “chicos”, Spanish for child or boy, and released 35 back into the wild.

Today, the TRC offers a fascinating peek at macaw conservation. When the scientific team is there, from the macaws’ breeding season of November to late March, tourists can tag along to watch chicks being lowered from the nestboxes to be weighed and measured.

Researchers have erected 24 nest boxes of six different designs, most constructed of PVC. So far only scarlet macaws have accepted the boxes, but scientists hope blue-and-gold and green-winged macaws will, too. Designs that succeed in Tambopata will be tried in Bolivia to help save the endangered blue-throated macaw, which prefers the same palm tree as the blue-and-gold for nesting.

Bold "chicos"
As we headed up-river to the TRC, it seemed time had stood still in the rainforest since my last visit. Blackhead vultures still flew in the distance.

In May, the end of Peru’s six-month rainy season, the Tambopata River was still running hard and muddy brown. Along the bank we saw the occasional caiman, great blue heron or a turtle decorated with a resting butterfly-Peru has an estimated 4200 butterfly species, about 20 percent of the planet’s.

The 13-room Tambopata Research Center offers simple but comfortable jungle accommodations.

The river washed away much of the bank at the TRC last year, so it’s a shorter walk from the dock to the lodge than before. Still, before climbing out of the boat we all put on the rubber boots issued back at Posada Amazonas. Outside the lodge’s entrance, we sat on benches to tug them off again so we wouldn’t track in mud.

Although rustic, the current Tambopata Research Center is a big improvement over the simple roofed sleeping platform the first visiting scientists and tourists used.

It now boasts 13 rooms off a center hall, with coarse cloth curtains for doors and a 100-foot open walkway leading to the showers and toilets.

The other end of the lodge, where researchers once fed the chicos, is now a combination dining room and lounge area.

Like the Posada Amazonas, the TRC’s guest rooms are open, so chicos can come and go as they please. Half a dozen of these semi-tame scarlet macaws-including the friendly bird who sat on my shoulder-visit most every breakfast, lunch and dinner for handouts.

They love to get into the sugar dispenser at the coffee table and walk down the tops of the rooms checking for crackers, cookies or anything else they can eat or have fun with.

If a bird gets too overly friendly with a diner’s meal, one of the staff will grab a banana and run to the “macaw table” in the yard to lure the hungry chico away.

Land of plenty
Those who know it best will tell you Peru has more of everything than almost any other country. It boasts the highest tropical mountains, the driest desert, the deepest valleys, the most biologically diverse rain forest, the richest fishery, and the most extraordinary archaeological and cultural diversity.

Corn, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, chocolate, hot peppers, peanuts, pumpkins, squashes, beans, quinoa, amaranthus, and dozens of other tubers, grains, and fruits were first domesticated in Peru.

The extremes extend to wildlife as well. Colombia and Peru each have 1730 bird species--more than any other country in the world---but the number of species unique to Peru is 114, nearly twice the figure for Colombia.

In one day of walking and paddling in the Manu lowlands of southeastern Peru, birders saw and heard 331 species of birds--a world record.

And yet anyone who has visited Central or South America knows that extraordinary biodiversity notwithstanding, it’s often tough to see, much less photograph, animals in the jungle.

Posada Amazonas and the TRC have a decided edge, of course, when it comes to parrots. Your best bet for parrot pictures will be the green-winged macaws at Posada.

At the TRC’s clay lick, you will need at least a 1000-mm lens, and even that might not be strong enough for a good picture from across the river. However, you can get some great close-up shots at the lodge when chicos come to visit.

It’s possible to see large mammals such as jaguars and ocelots while at the TRC, but not likely. Rainforest Expeditions puts the probability of sighting these particular animals at 7 and 5 percent, respectively. You’re likelier to spy one of several piglike animals, including the capybara or tapir, or a howler or spider monkey, as we did.

One of the most fun things to do is to take a guided night walk on the nearby trails. Once out a piece you find a good place to stop, turn off all your flashlights, and sit perfectly still until you hear something moving close by.

One night after about 15 minutes of sitting in pitch dark, we snapped our flashlights back on to find we had been joined by an armadillo. It peered at us for a few seconds then ambled on. Deer also graze less than 100 feet away from the lodge.

Quicker ride home
Our last day at the Tambopata Research Center, Karen and I made one last trip to the clay lick to bid farewell to the parrots.

This time we spent the morning in a blind above the lick, which affords a closer view than the beach across the river, some 300 feet away.

Then we boarded a canoe for our final river trip, this time straight to Puerto Maldonado. Because you’re traveling with the current, the return trip takes a relatively brief six hours.

Whether your main interest is macaw conservation, rainforest ecology, or South America, Posada Amazonas and the Tambopata Research Center deserve your consideration when booking an ecotrip to Peru.

ParrotChronicles.com. Published Fall 2001.

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