Amazon Riverboat Cruises on the Delfin I, II or III

Arrive to Iquitos, where you’ll be met by the Delfin’s guides and transported by bus to the city of Nauta. After boarding and check-in, you’ll have the evening to enjoy your first dinner, meet the crew and your fellow passengers, and relax as the Amazon scenery flows by.

Visit the Pacaya Simiria National Reserve. During the wet season (Dec – May), explore Belluda Stream by skiff, looking for parrots, macaws and monkeys. You may also see Morpho butterflies and various species of hawks, including the noisy “laughing falcon,” named for its loud falsetto call. During the dry Season (Jun – Nov), do some hiking at Belluda Caño, where you can explore two different kinds of ecosystems: “flooded forest” and “terra firme” forest. This area is home to snail kites, black-tailed ant birds, manikins, tanagers, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, nun birds, orioles, blackbirds, and pygmy marmosets. Your hike will take you to a lagoon filled with endangered and unique fresh water fish, where you can explore the waters in a dugout canoe.

In the afternoon, head to Dorado River by skiff, with a good chance of seeing gray and pink river dolphins and possibly swimming with them. You may also spot snail kites, festive parrots, endangered scarlet macaws, olive-spotted hummingbirds, Amazonian parrotlets, iguanas, squirrel monkeys, and wood creepers.

Explore Atun Poza by skiff (during the wet season), spotting egrets, herons, hawks, long-legged neo-tropical cormorants, and loud horned screamers. Venture into connected black water lagoons, where wattled jacanas can be found along with a variety of spiders, grasshoppers, dragonflies, butterflies, moths, and beetles living along the freshwater swamps and marshes. You may also see social spiders, whose webs envelop huge parts of the trees. During the dry season, hike into Atun Poza, passing through tropical rainforest with emergent trees and canopy trees reaching up to 180 feet in height. You may see giant otters, and this is an excellent location for spotting birds such as the bluish-fronted jacamar, collared trogons, and red capped cardinals.

Continue up the Puinahua River towards the Pacaya River, in the heart of the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, for further exploration of the largest protected wetland reserve in the world. Aboard the skiffs, explore the spectacular rainforest wilderness while searching for different species of monkeys, such as small family groups of red howler monkeys. Watch the sunset over the river, and once darkness falls you will start your night safari in search of night herons, pauraques, spectacled owls, fish bats, and the spectacled and black caimans that live in the water.