If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is this video worth? Sorry, they don’t allow embedding but click on the link below to watch it on Vimeo.
The enigmatic Macaws of Tambopata from Christian Declercq on Vimeo.
Every time I watch this I want to book the next flight back to Peru. If you are inspired, check out the other posts I have on how to see the Enigmatic Macaws of Tambopata for yourself!
Review of Refugio Amazonas and Tambopata Research Center
Tis the season to shop, so why not give some wonderful gifts that in turn give back to the environment? If you go to Peru to see the macaw clay lick in the Tambopata National Reserve, you will find these beautiful wall-hangings called arpilleras being sold at the airport gift shops and in some of the lodges. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t buy more of these when I was there and also some of the other crafts they have as they are absolutely gorgeous!
But even if you don’t have a trip planned, you can still get one of these gorgeous artworks for yourself or as a gift for someone!
These are handmade by indigenous artisans in the jungles of Peru. Each wall-hanging is an original; hand-sewn and unique. Your purchase will aid local communities and protect wild areas. These amazing one-of-a-kind fabric artworks support indigenous communities which in turn protect their local clay licks – an arrangement that benefits parrots and humans alike. Funds raised from each sale encourage this sustainable trade. There is more information here about how arpilleras support conservation and ecotourism.
OK, so now you want one (or 10) and you don’t plan to go to Peru in the near future? Don’t worry! They can be ordered from the World Parrot Trust and you have a choice of a USA based store and the UK/Worldwide based store. All profits go to support their conservation projects that save wild parrots around the world. I have seen many wild parrots rescued and returned to the wild because of World Parrot Trust over the years.
I have 4 arpilleras in my home and they are treasured featured artworks in my bird room. If you can’t go to the rainforest, why not bring the rainforest to you? (And then plan a trip there in the future!)
WHERE IS IT EXACTLY?
In the previous post of this series, we have used miles and points to get from your hometown to Lima, Peru and have an overnight stay to get you refreshed before you arrive in our destination, the Tambopata National Reserve aka Tambopata-Candamo National Reserve. So where exactly is the Tambopata National Reserve? As the crow, Macaw flies, it’s not really that far from Cuzco, and it’s close to the border with Bolivia.
HOW DO YOU GET THERE?
To get here from Lima, most people will fly in from Lima or Cuzco. If you are going to do a stopover in Cuzco, I advise you do it on the return. Cuzco is at very high altitude and unless you are already acclimated to high altitudes, you may suffer from altitude sickness which can leave you feeling lethargic and ill for days. There are medicines to combat that, but I prefer to err of the side of caution as I know that I personally don’t deal well with high altitudes. Here are the flight schedules on LAN Peru (One World) and Avianca/Taca (Star Alliance). If you used One World or Star Alliance miles, these flights will have been included in your ticket. If they weren’t, this is a typical situation when it is nice to have some BA Avios on hand for a cheap 4500 Avios redemption. Later on, I will go into more detail about this but you can always ask in the comments if you need info urgently. Depending on the rules of your airline’s FF program, you may be able to book the whole trip as a RT from your home to Puerto Maldonado with a stop in Cuzco or as an open jaw Home-Puerto Maldonado /-Cuzco-Home and buy a separate ticket between Puerto Maldonado and Cuzco. As you can see, most flights are very early in the morning, making it well worth getting those Wyndham points so you can use the airport hotel. I won’t show fares here as they vary widely but be aware that the cheapest fares are usually for Peruvians only. Use miles!
BUT IT’S SO CLOSE TO CUZCO, CAN’T I TAKE A BUS?
Yes, you can take a bus between the two and many backpackers do choose this option because buying flights can be very expensive. The trip will take between 12-20 hours depending on if you go in the rainy season or not. Just be grateful you have miles! 😀
WHAT PARROTS CAN I SEE IN THE TAMBOPATA NATIONAL RESERVE?.
Blue-and-yellow Macaw (Ara ararauna)
Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao)
Red-and-green Macaw (Ara chloroptera)
Chestnut-fronted Macaw (Ara severa)
Red-bellied Macaw (Orthopsittaca manilata)
Red-shouldered Macaw (Diopsittaca nobilis)
White-eyed Parakeet (Aratinga leucophthalmus)
Dusky-headed Parakeet (Aratinga weddellii)
Peach-fronted Parakeet (Aratinga aurea)
Black-capped Parakeet(Pyrrhura rupicola)
Blue-winged Parrotlet (Forpus xanthopterygius)
Dusky-billed Parrotlet (Forpus sclateri)
Cobalt-winged Parakeet (Brotogeris cyanoptera)
Tui Parakeet (Brotogeris sanctithomae)
Amazonian Parrotlet (Nannopsittaca dachilleae)
Scarlet-shouldered Parrotlet (Touit huetii)
White-bellied Parrot (Pionites leucogaster)
Orange-cheeked Parrot (Pionopsitta barrabandi)
Blue-headed Parrot (Pionus menstruus)
Yellow-crowned Parrot (Amazona ochrocephala)
Orange-winged Parrot (Amazona amazonica)
Mealy Parrot (Amazona farinose)
Orange-cheeked Parrot
WHAT ABOUT OTHER BIRDS?
WAY too many to copy here, but I found a good comprehensive list online. Some of the most highly sought-after birds are the toucan species: Channel-billed and White-throated Toucans, Chestnut-eared Aracari, Curl-crested Aracari, Emerald Toucanet and the Golden-collared Toucanet. Raptors include: Harpy Eagle, Bat Falcon, Gray-lined Hawk, Great Black-Hawk and Roadside Hawk. And there there are numerous species of Tinamou, Caracara, Owls, Nightjar, Kingfishers, Tanagers, Mot-Mots, Trogons and the enigmatic Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) just to name a few!
Hoatzin
MAMMALS
Monkeys are always popular and fun to watch. Tambopata has several species: Brown Capuchin, Dusky Titi Monkeys, Red Howler Monkeys and White-bellied Spider Monkey. If you are REALLY lucky, you may see a Jaguar! You are much more likely to see Giant River Otter, Capybara, Brown Agouti, Armadillos, Peccaries and Brown-throated three-toed sloth. A more comprehensive list can be found here.
Brown-throated three-toed sloth
In the next post, I will show you what kinds of lodges are in the Tambopata National Reserve, how to choose one and show options for all budgets.
OTHER POSTS IN THIS SERIES
Review of Refugio Amazonas and Tambopata Research Center
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we are going to build a sample trip step by step that will ultimately get us to the birder’s paradise of the Tambopata Research Centre.
In most cases, you will arrive in the gateway city after a long, tiring flight. Maybe a little less tired if you were in business class! If you are lucky, you may be able to connect straight through to your destination, Puerto Maldonado; but more often then not you will have an overnight layover either before or after the trip. Here’s how to find an overnight hotel and pay for it with your hotel points so you have more to spend on ecotourism.
First, get familiar with the major hotel chains as some of them have more than one brand. I have a chart to help you out. Then go to Google maps and type in Lima Airport. Look for hotels in the immediate vicinity of the airport. 
BINGO! There’s a Ramada right there at the airport! So how many points do you need? I plugged in some random dates. Wyndham is unusual in that you can’t book the reward night online, you have to call them but if you have 30,000 points you’re sorted for the night and only a short walk to the airport the next morning.
So what if you don’t have Wyndham points? Try some different chain websites for hotel programs you do have points in. Since we are planning pretty far in advance, you would also have time to build up your points account. These hotels aren’t near the airport but luckily taxis are pretty cheap in Lima.
What’s that? You don’t have any hotel points at all? You can still participate in a rewards program such as Hotels.com’s Welcome Rewards. 10 paid nights gets you a free night based on the average cost of the 10 nights you booked to earn it. So go to www.hotels.com, type in any random date and look at the results. Use the map view to see which options are close to the airport, for our purposes we just need somewhere safe and convenient. You will find a variety of accommodation ranging from backpacker cheapies at $20ish up to 5 star hotels.
It’s actually a pretty long list so I can’t put it all here but have a look for yourself. What I do is use the map to get as close as possible to the airport or if I have to stay downtown, I will go middle of the range. I also make use of Trip Advisor to check out the hotel reviews by other people who have stayed there. Start at the top with the top-rated hotels and scroll down until you see something in your price range. $67? Looks promising, let’s have a closer look.
It looks pretty good. I read a few reviews and most people seemed to like it. It’s not near the airport but like I said, taxis are cheap. I’d feel comfortable staying here.
That’s it for today. Get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow we will finally reach the lodge we’ve chosen and the adventure begins!
OTHER POSTS IN THIS SERIES
Review of Refugio Amazonas and Tambopata Research Center
One of the first things you need to know about to get you to your destination as cheaply as possible is how to work with airline alliances. Yesterday, I showed you how to use a guidebook to identify possible locations to see the targeted species, Scarlet Macaws. There are several places in South and Central America where they can be seen so I will just pick the famous clay licks of Peru and show you how to build a trip.
The gateway city is Lima (LIM) and you need to get to Puerto Maldonado (PEM) where you can be transferred to one of the outstanding lodges in the area. Once you have been in the miles and points game for awhile, you will get a feel for which airline to use where but if you are just starting out, Wikipedia will show you a list of all airlines that fly into a given airport. So we can see that Lima is served by a nice choice of airlines, but Puerto Maldonado is only served by 3 airlines. If you want to use miles to get all the way to Puerto Maldonado, you have two choices-One World or Star Alliance. Sky Team can get you to Lima, but you would have to use a separate ticket to get to Puerto Maldonado.
One World Options:
From North America you can use American Airlines or LAN.
From South America you can use LAN.
From Australia and New Zealand you can use Qantas or LAN via Santiago.
From UK and Europe you can use Iberia (direct to Lima) or travel via the USA on American and LAN. Lan Peru also serves Lima from Madrid.
From Asia or Africa there are no direct flights so you will need to travel via the USA or Europe.
In all cases, once you get to Lima, you will be connecting on LAN Peru to Puerto Maldonado.
Star Alliance Options:
From North America you can use Avianca, Copa or United.
From South America you can use Avianca.
From Australia and New Zealand, Europe, Asia and Africa there are no direct flights, you will need to travel via the USA. Depending on which program’s miles you have, this may require one or two awards.
In all cases, once you get to Lima, you will be connecting on Taca to Puerto Maldonado.
Sky Team Options:
There are no options all the way to Puerto Maldonado so in all cases you will need to get to Lima and buy a separate ticket to Puerto Maldonado.
From North America you can use Aerolineas Argentinas, AeroMexico or Delta.
From Europe you can use Air Europa, Air France or KLM, or you can connect in the USA or Buenos Aires on Aerolineas Argentinas.
From Australia you can use Aerolineas Argentinas, from New Zealand possibly Qantas to Sydney and then Aerolineas Argentinas.
From Asia and Africa there are no direct flights, you will need to travel via the USA or Europe.
HOW MANY MILES WILL IT COST?
Every airline member of the 3 main alliances has it’s own frequent flier program. They often have alliances with other airlines outside the program. I have made some reference charts for the airline alliances and I strongly recommend that you check out the program of the airline in your country and the USA based partners of each program as the USA airlines tend to have the most lucrative bonuses. Americans can get very generous credit card bonuses. Details of credit card partners (and other partners) will be on each airline’s website, however often there are more lucrative sign up bonuses. Details are usually posted in the Flyer Talk thread so I strongly suggest you read this thread and the Miles Buzz forum before you apply for any cards just in case a better bonus has been offered. I don’t have any affiliate links and I recommend you do extensive research on your own when applying for airline credit cards.
USING ONE WORLD
So how do I go about booking an award for myself? Lots of advance planning! I have a pretty good idea of where I want to go and which airline alliance is the best option. To get to Peru, I would use AAdvantage miles and take a route similar to BNE-AKL/SYD-SCL-LIM-PEM using Qantas or LAN between Australia and Santiago, then LAN Peru to Puerto Maldonado. Looking at AA’s award chart, we can see that Peru is in Central/South America Zone 1.
So let’s look at the chart. You will notice there are taxes and fees with certain routes and that the awards are prices as one way trips.
We can see that a South Pacific to Central/South America award will cost 40,000 miles each way (80,000 round trip) in economy, 65,000 (130,000 round trip) in business class and 75,000 each way (150,000 round trip in first class. AA doesn’t allow you to transit the USA on this award so you must fly on the only carriers that operate between Australia and South America-Qantas and LAN.
If you are based in North America, economy will cost 17.500 each way (35,000 round trip), business class is 30,000 each way (60,000 round trip) and first is 40,000 each way or 80,000 round trip. You would be flying on AA or LAN.
If you are based somewhere else, leave a comment if you don’t understand this part and I will help you out. Meanwhile, here is a reference list for other One World carriers.
USING STAR ALLIANCE
Star Alliance can also get you to Peru. Let’s use US Airways as an example. US does not offer one way awards so these are round trips. Peru is obviously in South America so it is pretty easy to just follow the line across to see how many miles it would cost from your region. You can use any Star Alliance carrier so if you are in North America, you could use a combination of United, US Airways, Avianca/Taca and Air Canada to get there. For Aussies and Kiwis it gets a bit more complicated. Theoretically you should be able to use Air New Zealand to LAX and then pick up Avianca/Taca which is probably fine in economy but availability is scarce in business. US Airways has recently been enforcing MPM (maximum permitted mileage) so while in the past we could route through Asian airports such as Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo and Seoul; this may no longer be possible.
United Airlines is a USA based carrier that offers one way awards and so do some of the other Star Alliance carriers. I have made up a reference list of all the airlines with links to their websites so check them out to see if any of them are better suited to your needs. Bear in mind that the tickets are not completely free, there is usually a booking fee of $25-50 and various taxes, but you have to pay the taxes whether you pay cash or miles for the ticket.
Well, that’s Step 1! We have now used our miles to get to Peru. Next step is to get to the lodge where you can start your adventure but enroute you will probably need a night to transit in Lima. Tomorrow we will look at the gateway city of Lima.
OTHER POSTS IN THIS SERIES
Review of Refugio Amazonas and Tambopata Research Center