4-Day Amazon Jungle Tour in Iquitos at Curassow Amazon Lodge

The experience exceeded our wildest expectations. The amount of wildlife was absolutely surreal, and yet we would have barely seen half of what we did had it not been for our outstanding guide Alex, who was not only an endless source of knowledge on every species of bird, reptile, plant, and insect we encountered, but an exceptional host with an unbridled enthusiasm for ensuring that we had the best experience possible. Our trip would not have been the same without him. Kudos also goes to our navigator Jorlan. The staff and lodge of Curassow were also excellent. The accommodation was comfortable and spacious. The food was served buffet style and not a single meal was anything less than great. The best part of this tour is that the trip is entirely catered to your group. When you book a tour, you are assigned your own guide and navigator. My husband and I had our boat and excursions to ourself, which was immeasurably better than being crammed into a boat with 20+ other guests. Thank you for the incredible experience Curassow.

There are many favorite memories of our trip to the Amazon. I found the most exciting part of the trip was the 3-hour river trip to the lodge, culminating in navigating through the aquatic vegetation that moved into the waterway thus making for that oh -no feeling that we truly were in a remote jungle environment. That exciting feeling, the closeness of the beautiful white Egrets along with the lonely sound of the Yamaha 15hp motor plowing through the floating meadow made for that memorable moment. Even though you can get to the lodge now by two roads in a shorter trip, I wholeheartedly agree with Martin, Curassow manager, that to feel the Amazon you need the river boat to get a feel for the inhabitants and the way of life on the river. Another positive, being from Minnesota I expected many mosquitoes but bugs were not a problem at all day or night. The lodge bungalow number six was fantastic for the little time that we were in the room. Martin even made it very festive highlighting the room with the balloons noting our 35th wedding anniversary. Our room attendant was very attentive to all our needs and Harry provided the fine-tuning to Chef Ronaldo's five-star meals. Leo and Jason made our adventures memorable with their uncanny ability to spot wildlife. Leo let us know that our itinerary was whatever we planned for due to our interest. But with not having made a plan, Leo provided a taste of the Amazon for us. One that would welcome a return. We experienced a local home where we bought handicrafts, learned about the educational project anthropologist Barbara is working on and noted a variety of mammals, reptiles, fish, and birds. I got to swim with the pink dolphin, though they were about 50 yards away; active sloths, which one almost fell from a branch; horned screamers, macaws, plum throated Cortinga, and white owl (rare); small and medium-sized caiman, tree frogs: cockroaches; yellow, jumped in the boat, fish along with the walking catfish; and thorned palm trees, ouch! to name a few of our sightings. We hope to return to this place and it will be easier this time looking for accommodations as we will look only to Curassow to provide a wonderful jungle feel. We were fortunate that we went when there were higher water levels and did not have to deal with mud or trekking.