Tahuayo Lodge

The most acclaimed lodge of Peru’s Northern Amazon is unquestionably Tahuayo Lodge (10305 Riverburn Dr., Tampa, FL 33647, 800/262-9669, paul.beaver@gte.net, www.perujungle.com, seven days/six nights, $1,295), which is operated by Amazonia Expeditions. The lodge has been listed as one of the top ten travel finds by Outside magazine, and its survival school was the subject of a January 2001 Outside feature and an award-winning documentary.

What sets this lodge apart is that it is the only one near the extraordinary Reserva Nacional Tamshiyacu Tahuayo, which was designated a reserve by the Peruvian government in 1991 to protect the rare Uakari monkey. Biologists have since recorded 500 bird species and exceptional levels of biodiversity. The whole area has so many endemic species that biologists believe that it was a Pleistocene refuge, or a zone that remained forested in the last Ice Age.

The wooden lodge has 15 cozy rooms, some with larger beds, and all with flush toilets. There is a dining room, hammock hall, library, free laundry, and a laboratory with a terrarium that contains tarantulas and other creepy-crawlies. There is access to both flooded and terra firme forest in the area, a controlled zipline that allows guests to cruise through the canopy at a hundred feet off the ground, and nearly fifty different activities listed on its excellent web page. The lodge is 145 km away from Iquitos on the Río Tahuayo, or four hours by speedboat.

The lodge tailors itineraries to individual interests. There are honeymoon programs, for instance, that include swimming with pink dolphins, bathing in a secluded waterfall glen filled with orchids, and a ceremony in which a shaman blesses the union. But the program that has caught most attention is the survival school, a weeklong baptism-by-fire where jungle master Moises Chavez takes neophytes into the jungle with nothing but a machete and teaches them how to survive. Topics covered include how to build a lean-to, use poisonous sap to stun fish, make natural medicines, fashion a bow and arrow, collect edible nuts and berries, and build a raft. Many of these techniques are described by Paul Beaver, the owner of Tahuayo Lodge, in his excellent new autobiography Diary of an Amazon Jungle Guide.