Tambopata National Reserve and Puerto Maldonado

The entrance door to the “Peru Ecological Paradise” The Garden of the Eden of PeruIt is said that the Amazon basin is the only place that gives one the sensation of witnessing the dawn of time. Thousands of visitors are drawn to the diversity of the area’s forests and rivers, arriving in the city of Puerto Maldonado, the capital of the department of Madre de Dios, ready to set out on a journey filled with excitement and discovery.

Puerto Maldonado city was founded July 10, 1902, the city was named after explorer Faustino Maldonado, who paddled up the Madre de Dios River to the point where it comes together with the Tambopata River.

Puerto Maldonado is the gateway to fascinating protected natural areas in the southern Peruvian Amazon rainforest, featuring an extraordinary diversity of wild species of flora and fauna. The special characteristic of the jungle of Madre de Dios department is due to masses of cold air coming from the southern Atlantic, during the months of June, and they originate an abrupt descent of the temperature, reaching 5°C or less. This meteorological phenomenon is called “friaje”.

This situation, in the evolutionary process during hundred-thousand years, originated the disappearance of many species of reptiles, because of being of cold blood, and when existing less predators, and the adaptation of others, it is already allowed the subsistence and evolution of species missing in other places of the earth, inclusive in the Amazon area. Existence of animal species and unique vegetables in their gender. These forests still have many places to discover and also many unknown species alive for the science.

A riverboat ride down the Tambopata River or Madre de Dios River takes one to the Bahuaja Sonene National Park or Tambopata National Reserve, while the Heath River leads to the Pampas del Heath, a unique savanna area wedged in the heart of Peru’s tropical rainforest and a haven for unique animal species.