If you have have ever been to Curassow Lodge and been on an adventure with Amazon Expeditions we’d love to hear about your experience and share it with others. It’s easy, just use the form at the bottom of the page to tell your story, testimonial or just a quick comment and if you like, post a link to your trip photos.
What can I say? DREAM COME TRUE! For years I have been reading books and watching the Discovery channel about the Amazon. I had visions of myself one day riding a canoe through the jungle looking for a spot to fish piranha. Palo Verde Lodge made these visions become real. The forest was everything I imagined and more, and the guides showed me the best parts.
The staff there was just terrific. They know everything about the jungle, and want to show you everything. I got to see monkeys, sloths, birds of all kinds, and much more. The food was 5 star restaurant taste and display. My personal favorite was the fried banana.
This was definitely the best experience of my life. I will come back again and again and AGAIN! Don’t let going to the Amazon be something you always talk about and never do. Go out and do it! And do it with Palo Verde Lodge and Expeditions. ~ Andrew “Buddy” McDade
A few months ago I was presented with an opportunity to travel to the Peruvian Amazon with Amazon Expeditions to Curassow Lodge from 6-19 to 6-28 2009. I am glad I didn’t pass it up.
From the time we left Iquitos till we returned the memories are astounding. Being met at the airport by Carlos and company we were treated with the utmost respect and from then on any reasonable request was promptly filled with a smile.
Curassow Lodge was impressive, from the meeting area/dining hall to the bungalows to the grounds. The meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner and/or snacks were by far more than I expected.
The excursions my friends and I went on, catching piranha, peacock bass, oscar, catfish and other species whose names escape me, swimming with piranha, trekking through the jungle looking for and finding tarantula’s, huge toads and frogs, jaguar tracks, along with the guides knowledge of these animals and the plants we passed were a delight.
The birds, ah the birds. I had never seen so many birds, so many species of birds, again along with the knowledge of the guides made birding to someone like me, who didn’t have a great appreciation of the activity think twice.
Traveling along the many tributaries of the Amazon in the area and the oxbow lakes we saw 3 toed sloths, caymans and monkeys just to name a few and I still don’t have a clue how llyako, our guide, spotted that Iguana far up in the trees.
With all the wonderful activities to keep you busy if you so desire, there is one thing that tugged at my heart in both a delightful and distressing way. The Peruvian villagers around Palo Verde Lodge are a proud and poor people. I believe they are the hardest working people I have ever seen. I can’t say enough about the children. They are a happy bunch that loves to see strangers, have their picture taken and play with anyone who will take the time. I hope you take a portion or whole day to spend with them.
What Palo Verde Lodge does to help the villagers improve their daily lives is commendable on any level. I will leave it with the staff to discuss that but trust me when I say they go above and beyond. ~ Robert Cobb
I am a 35 year old Project manager from Charlotte NC. I heard about Curassow Lodge from a friend 2 years ago and thought a trip to the rain forest is definitely something I wanted to do. In February 2009, I finally made the journey and it was totally amazing, in fact it was life changing.
After a short connecting flight from Lima we arrived in Iquitos where we spent a day touring this little city in the middle of Peru’s Amazon jungle before heading out to Palo Verde Lodge. We arrived at the lodge around 11 am and I have got to say, this place is incredible. 10 individual huts, a grand gathering room in the center of the grounds, papaya trees right out your door, hammocks on every huts back deck, and of course this massive green tree right in the center of the grounds, the great Palo Verde itself.
I spent 5 days at the with my guide and a Belgian couple who were backpacking across South America. Along with the rest of the bunch and our guides, we ventured out, by boat each day to see the great rain forest. February is the rainy season so we did about 90% of our traveling by boat which turned out to be a really great way to see the jungle. Our guides knew every nook and cranny of the place as if it was their own back yard and for 2 of them, it was. They were able to show us plant life I have never seen before. They showed us sloths in trees, monkeys, anaconda, Piranha and birds of all kinds. We visited lakes and journeyed up the Amazon for hikes that lead us deep in to the jungle.
If you are an adventurer, you will LOVE this trip. The guides we smart, friendly, spoke English and really seemed to enjoy sharing their part of the world with us. This lodge provided all the food and drink we needed and there was never a shortage of things to do. I can’t wait to revisit the lodge again next year and take my fiancé with me. I want to thank the staff an guides for the trip of a life time! Photos from my trip>>
~ Chad Browninger
South America/Peru had not been on my short list for travel, but I was told about it from a friend in Charlotte, and I wanted to be counted in. I have had some great travel experiences not only in the U.S. but also in Canada and several different places in Europe. This trip has to be one of the best! In addition to spending time on the Amazon at Curassow Lodge, Mike did the most fantastic job of arranging for our group to travel on to Machu Picchu. The time spent at Amazon Expeditions was incredible. The guides and staff were wonderful and attempted to meet our every need and wish. The guide that I went out with most not only spoke Spanish and English but also Italian and Japanese. He knew every plant, bird, insect, etc. as well as telling us so much about local customs and folklore. I consider myself a “foodie,” and the meals were a feast for all of the senses. Our group ranged in age from a ten year old young man and his sixteen year old female cousin to a woman in her mid sixties. The activities were appealing to all of us. The lodge facilities are so attractive and comfortable; it was hard to believe we were in the middle of the jungle. I had visions of “camping,” and I don’t do camping — this was far from that!
One of the highlights of the time spent along the Amazon was a visit to a nearby village that AE has “adopted.” It is my understanding that in addition to providing this exciting travel adventure, they also want to use a portion of the proceeds from this endeavor to better the living conditions and the environmental concerns of the area. I consider myself informed about the proverty situations here in the U.S., but I had never witnessed poverty in a third world country. This will have a lasting impact on me, and I have told friends and family that if I ever complain about what I have or don’t have that they need to give me a swift kick.
AE arranged all of the inter-country travel–flights, hotels, transportation and entrance into Machu Picchu and touring in/around Cusco. Again, we had a knowledgeable guide that was with us on our trip to Machu Picchu and to the ruins in Cusco. He even arranged for us to have a ceremony with a shaman.
Thanks to Mike and others who made this such a wonderful trip! I absolutely loved it!
~ Nancy Ruby
I’ve lived in Colombia, one of Peru’s neighbors, all my life… I’ve seen my share of monkeys, tarantulas and anacondas, fished for piranhas, hunted for wild orchids, tramped through boggy swamps, lived among natives, ever since I was a kid. But I’d never been to the great Amazon. It truly is a unique and awe-inspiring experience. The immensity of the jungle is simply amazing, both in the expanse of that green sea of foliage as you fly over it and in the towering height of the trees as you stand so small in the midst of them.
I’ve also known Mike, Amazon Expeditions’ founder, since we were little and I know the depth of his love for experiencing nature and new cultures, not for novelty’s sake, but because they have a deep and meaningful value to him. I love his two-fold vision of bringing others to experience an impacting adventure and to invest in community development and local issues that the surrounding indigenous villages face.
Like Charlie said above, I look forward to going back again someday. The Amazon is such a diverse place with its distinctive cycles and migrations: every trip will be a unique experience.
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~ John Captain
