Tambopata Research Center

Our visit to Tambopata was a great experience. The rooms were amazing with one side opening to the rainforest. There were mosquito nets over the beds. Bathrooms were good with hot water showers. Open air dining room with good buffet food. Macaws and tamarind monkeys were observed whilst dining. You went on guided walks morning, afternoon and night. The lodge is in the rainforest and a short walk to the river. Guides were so knowledgable. Making sure you got to see some amazing birds and mammals. We saw 6 of the monkey species that live here. Would recommend coming. They even have great activities planned if its raining.

My wife and I spent four nights at the TRC for a nature and wildlife experience. In general, it was very good, but not as good as I expected.| |Getting there is not easy: From the office near the airport, it is a 1.5 hour bus ride to the dock, and the last 45 minutes was on a very bad gravel road. From the dock to the TRC, it is a 2.5 hour boat ride that was okay, but we did not see much wildlife. The river is quite wide and has many stretches of rocky beach. The jungle is pretty but because of the width of the river, it was less stunning than some rivers we have seen.| |The lodge is beautiful, but I was surprised that there is not much to do during the long breaks between excursions. Guests are not permitted to walk the trails alone. The room: there is not much to do in the room either - no comfortable seating to watch the outdoors, and in our case, we saw nothing of interest outside the room. We had difficulty with the shower (no hot water two of the days). The food was good, but not special ... only a few "wow" dishes, and a lack of variety.| |Wildlife:|* The birds are fantastic, but of course they rarely are close enough to get a good view with the naked eye. I had binoculars, but they were not the best. We visited a clay lick, where we saw dozens of macaws and parrots, but we were 100-150 meters away.|* The monkeys are wonderful, but the sightings are not frequent and, again, they are rarely close enough to get a great view.|* We saw some capybara, a few caiman, snakes, and a few turtles.|* The best viewing was when the guide found something interesting on his scope, but with several in the group, I could only see when it was my turn to look through the scope.| |The weather can be very hot and humid. We were lucky to have a cool front that cooled down the forest for the final two days.||The TRC has an amazing location, but as noted above, there were aspects that were somewhat disappointing. I do not think it was worth the $4300 we spent for a four night trip.

Breathtaking! We have just come back from a 2 night stay at the research centre. It was incredible and one of the most memorable experiences we have ever had. The staff are extremely friendly and go above and beyond, always willing to help and are extremely attentive. The food is amazing offering buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner. Everything was fresh, delicious and locally sourced, considering your in the middle of the rainforest the quality is amazing and catered to dietary requirements so well. The snacks and coffee tea bar during the day was an excellent added touch, especially after a long hike or tours. The rooms are so immersive, not for everyone, but for us it was amazing being so close to nature, even with a few lil insects in the room, all part of the experience. The work that the research centre does is so interesting and the evening talks about the different projects we're very interesting and insightful. The best part by far are the activities we did with our guide Johan. Johan was an incredible guide with so much knowledge. He catered our activities to what we wanted to try and see. The nature we saw was amazing and feel very privileged to have had so many different encounters with so many animals. We cannot thank the whole team enough for an exceptional stay. Especially Johan for being the best guide ever! Thank you so much and we hope to visit you all again in the future.

Great one in a lifetime experience. Saw a lot of wildlife including a jaguar. Saw moneys right outside our room. We had room 24 on the end-it's a long hike to lodge but in terms of tranquility and seeing wildlife from your room it was great! Food ok. We were there 3 nights and it's very similar each night. Great evening lectures. We were all very careful using only purified water but all 6 adults in our family got severe painful travelers diarrhea and 3 needed to start antibiotics! So come prepared! No matter how careful the lodge thinks they are with food prep there's always a risk!|All in all fabulous experience! |They need to improve the way you charge drinks to your room. Someone put their beers on our room (we don't drink beer)-they just ask for a room number with NO verification so there were some dishonest guests when we stayed. We refused to pay this tab and they did not give us a hard time but you should write down name so bartender can check in computer and verify or have guests show their room key perhaps?.

An unforgettable, fully immersive jungle experience. Amazing how Tambopata Lodge delivers luxury touches in such a remote and rugged location. The food is fantastic, the staff incredible, and the wildlife sightings non-stop. The personalised itinerary and one-on-one guiding made the trip truly special—huge thanks to our guide Johan for sharing his passion and knowledge. The Macaw Project is inspiring, and it’s clear the lodge fully supports this important conservation work. Manager Brian was always kind, helpful. Well-done all involved.

TRC certainly offers a very special and totally immersive Amazon jungle experience well worth the price. The lodge is very authentic and I really enjoyed the "no glass windows, let the forest enter the room" experience: I had a lovely tree-frog visitor on my bathroom door early one morning and bats coming and going at dusk, and of course the unforgettable soundscape. The staff were wonderful, particularly the manager Mary, and our guides, especially Timo, were super knowledgeable, friendly and very tech savvy (I am very grateful to Timo for his efforts at taking videos and pictures on our phones through the binocular lens with ultra fine precision!). The food was delicious, although on the last day lunch and dinner menu choices were less diverse (I stayed 3 nights). I thoroughly enjoyed the guided group tours, and you could join different groups depending on what you'd prefer to see on that day (we saw a lot of wildlife, but one has to remember that binoculars are essential - wild animals are exactly that - wild, they don't come close and are not at the beck and call for instagram pictures).That said, I did find not being able to take to any trail on my own without being cautioned about getting lost a bit restrictive. On my last day, while on a guided walk, we passed a beautiful spot near the river with a bench and a small football pitch (!) and I would have liked to have arrived there on my own, sat down for more than 5mins and observed the opposite bank for like an hour on my own - perhaps the jaguar would have come out or the capybaras! Giving visitors a small map with some of the trails marked would create a sense of personal adventure. having just done the 4 day Inca trail I also wanted to try the deep tissue massage to ease my overworked calf muscles, but this was a bit of a disappointment - way too light a touch, even after I asked the masseuse to go a bit stronger. I didn't feel much improvement after, just a fleeting spa treatment feeling. I booked my trip with Rainforest Expeditions and Monica was very helpful throughout advising me and explaining everything. Also a huge thanks to the smooth transfers from the Puerto Maldonado bus terminal to the Rainforest Expeditions HQ complex where I could get refreshed, and the lovely staff who called me a taxi to the centre of town and back so I could get a light breakfast before the bus & boat ride upriver. And on the last morning back to the airport. all in all a superb jungle experience.

The attention to detail by the staff really stood out. The food was excellent. The cleaning staff was tidy and great. Above all, our tour guide Juan Carlos Yatto was superb. I visited to do birdwatching and he helped us spot nearly 100 different species. I would highly recommend that any birdwatchers book Juan Carlos as their guide. I need to edit my photos still but attached are a few from my phone.

Fantastic to be deep in the forest surrounded by incredible wildlife with our amazing guide Juan Carlos Yatto, who really knew his stuff! Also his photography skills meant that we could share our experience even better through his telescope using our phone cameras! We learned so much!!|He went to extra lengths to find butterflies and moths for us along with so many different birds and monkeys. This was a travel highlight for us as experienced wildlife travellers. |We loved our spacious room with no windows and open to more wildlife visitors but after 5 nights the bed could have been a little more comfortable. Luckily we had a second bed to use. Otherwise it was fantastic with hot water showers and fresh drinking water all the time. We were amazed at the variety of food on offer for breakfast, lunch and dinner and couldn’t believe they could have such a wonderful food offering in such a remote location. Even the wine and cocktails were great.|I highly recommend spending the extra money and time getting to this location. We stayed at another lodge later which was closer to Puerto Maldonado and there was far less wildlife.