Mexico, Central & South America > Peru > other areas of Peru > Puetro Maldonaldo > Jungle > Articles > Tambopata Rainforest

The closer the alligator swims, the less I’m able to move. At first I can make out the ridges of its curved back above the waterline of Lago Tres Chimbales, in the Tambopata rainforest in Peru. Then the monster’s ridged snout comes into view as it turns and idles closer. Now I’m staring into its black eyes. And it’s looking straight back at me.

In fact it was a caiman, South American cousin to the North American alligator, and its eyes are all black, so it could have been looking at any of us on the raft. But facts and logic dim into the background when a tonne of predatory dinosaur is headed your way.

We hadn’t even meant to be here. With just eleven days in the country, my partner and I had agonised over what to leave out of our Peruvian itinerary. Machu Picchu, of course, hadn’t been negotiable.

When it came to jungle, we’d thought that meant Brazil and arduous travel. But we found out that over half of Peru is rainforest or 'el infierno verde' – ‘the green hell’ – as urban Peruvians call it.

From Cuzco, Peru's second city and stepping-stone to the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu, it’s a 45-minute flight to Puerto Maldonado, gateway to pristine Amazon rainforest.

Puerto Maldonado first grew with the rubber boom in the early 20th century. Today it's a sleepy frontier town, mostly local Indians, and a handful of gold-prospectors.

Its pace and people are so seductive that we stayed a day – long enough to wander the wide, quiet streets, stock up on mosquito repellant and join twenty animated locals to watch Peru go a goal down to arch-rivals Bolivia on a rickety TV set. Then we were spirited away by bumpy red-clay road and muddy Tambopata River to a lodge deep in the jungle.

We chose our jungle tour and lodge, Posada Amazonas, on its eco-credentials. Many are owned by outsiders, purely for profit. One has even created a false monkey island to guarantee monkey sighting. Ours was the antithesis. Created to minimise impact on the environment it’s co-owned and co-run by the local community, the Ese’eja of Infierno, and a Peruvian architect, Eduardo Nycander. Condé Nast Traveller awarded it a best ecotourism award.

It’s a designer camp of open-plan wood structures on stilts, connected by paths in the middle of the rainforest with no electricity.

Our guide led us into the forest and up a 140 foot tall viewing tower, to emerge above the trees, blinking into the afternoon sunlight. Spread before us was green forest canopy to every horizon – a view that hasn’t changed for millennia. It evoked emotions in me I’d thought were extinct.

Pairs of red and green and scarlet macaws squawked and flapped past us in pairs. They mate for life and can live to a hundred, our guide said. Gangs of vultures swooped nearby. Green parrots hung upside down in a tree-hole, their bed for the night. The twilight was suddenly rent by the sound of a distant jet engine being sucked into a vortex. The world’s loudest land animal – howler monkeys – were letting everything within three miles know not to disturb their good night’s sleep.

Then the sun set and we headed down into the foreboding forest, back to base for hearty forest fare – rice, jungle vegetables and curried river-fish.

And so to mosquito-netted bed. Accommodation in the Amazon varies wildly, from rickety wood hut to gold-miner deluxe. Ours was rainforest-romantic, kerosene and candles our lighting, the mosquito net our four-poster. And only three walls, the fourth missing to create the world's most realistic rainforest mural, its day-time greens now replaced by shadows.

We had assumed we were the only ones staying in our room until that first night. Frog in shower, cockroach in bed, panic in girlfriend. Welcome to the jungle.

All about us, cicadas whirred, bamboo rats burped and frogs croaked. The primordial ruckus really comes to life at night. And we were up at dawn to go see who or what was making the noise.

It felt like stepping into one of those amazing wildlife documentaries – except we were right there. Staring out a caiman. Gawping at iridescent blue butterflies with wings the size of table-tennis bats. Jumping out of our skins at an eight-foot long snake’s recently shedded skin. Watching monkeys – Brown Capuchins and Squirrel Monkeys, the only different species of monkey to hang out together, said the guide – jump from tree to tree and chase away a toucan.

Few places leave a mark on you like the jungle. Taking off from the airstrip a few days later, we felt genuinely sad – although more than a little relieved to be returning to modcons and a bedroom with four walls.

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