Wildlife: Whether it’s the giant otter, pink river dolphin, Taricaya turtle, prehistoric hoatzin, or the German shepherd–sized capybara rodent, you will be amazed by the Amazon’s wildlife. Binoculars in hand, you can catch the truly magnificent colors of the brightly plumed macaws, parrots, and parakeets. Or, to experience some extreme sport fishing, dunk a hook with a piece of meat into a swimming hole and you are likely to feel the aggressive tug of a knife-toothed piraña. In the evening, shine your flashlight along the shores of the river until you see two red dots — they are eyes of the alligator-like caiman lying in the mud and wondering if you could be dinner.

Canopy Walks: Getting high into the canopy, whether by ladder or ropes, is the only way to understand that most everything in the jungle happens a hundred feet off the ground.

Puerto Maldonado

Explorer’s Inn: The 5,500 hectares surrounding the lodge are home to 601 bird speciesand more than 1,235 types of butterflies, as well as howler monkeys, otters, and coral snakes.

The Tambopata Research Center: Located on the Río Tambopata, this is the only lodge near the Parque Nacional Bahuaja Sonene. It’s also just 500 meters away from the world’s largest macaw clay lick.

Reserva Amazónica: This most luxurious, and most romantic, lodge in the Peruvian Amazon is on the Río Madre de Dios. A number of rescued animals live on the property, including a Cuvier’s toucan, razor-billed curassau, pale-winged trumpeter, and scarlet macaw.

Manu Biosphere Reserve

Manu Expeditions: High in the treetops with expert English-ornithologist Barry Walker, you are unlikely to miss Manu’s Speckled and Cinnamon Teal or the Red-backed Hawk. The standard two-week birding trip promises hundreds of species more.

Iquitos Jungle

Tahuayo Lodge: One of the most acclaimed lodges of Peru’s northern Amazon offers access to the extraordinary Reserva Nacional Tamshiyacu Tahuayo, the habitat of the rare red Uakari monkey.