Posada Amazonas Lodge in Peruvian Amazon Encourages Guests to Pack with a Purpose

Posada Amazonas Lodge, one of three accommodations under the directive of Peru’s visionary leader in sustainable tourism, Rainforest Expeditions http://www.perunature.com/, has partnered with Pack for a Purpose that encourages travelers to carry with them five pounds of school or medical supplies that can make a difference to communities they’re visiting www.packforapurpose.org.

Rainforest Expeditions’ team has identified needs of its local community of the indigenous Ese’eja of Infierno who own this lodge that is located within a communal reserve. Some 170 native and ribereño families (second or third generation settlers) work and profit from this 30-room eco-lodge, wellness and holistic center.

“Because we partner on a daily basis with this 500-person community, we know intimately the academic challenges and shortcomings faced by its 65 children between the ages of 6 and 14,” said Rainforest Expeditions’ spokesperson Jeff Cremer. He said that community schools welcome computer equipment, pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, rulers, English teaching books, English/Spanish dictionaries, software, ecology-focused teaching aids and playground equipment along with puzzles, rubber balls, crayons, modeling clay and colored pencils. For a full list of needed items see: http://www.packforapurpose.org/docs/countries/peru/posada-amazonas.shtml

Cremer encouraged travelers to the region to first visit the website or email Rainforest Expeditions for specific needs that also include clothing and shoes plus medical supplies for the Native Community of Infierno Clinic. Most items are easily found in hometown pharmacies and discount stores. Five pounds equates to 400 pencils, or five deflated soccer balls with an inflation device or a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff and 500 band-aids.

Posada Amazonas (http://www.perunature.com/posada-amazonas.html) is a remote, comfortable lodge in the Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru, teeming with monkeys and more than 850 species of birds. In biodiversity-rich surroundings, The Rainforest Alliance Verified™ lodge hires from within the community, and sources locally produced goods whenever possible. Since joining RA’s verification program, the lodge has implemented a biodegradable sanitation system, reduced air and water pollution by purchasing eco-friendly boats, improved waste management, and conducted extensive training in sustainable management.

A common area at the lodge includes a hammock lounge, dining area, a meeting room and a bar. A 30-meter Canopy Tower offers views of the vast expanses of standing forest and nearby Tambopata River. Resident are toucans, parrots and macaws; hoatzin, caiman and horned screamers. From a catamaran on Lake Tres guests are treated to sightings of a family of Giant River Otters. Activities include walking an ethno botanical trail, visiting a working vegetable farm, community visits, kayaking and mountain biking.

Rainforest Expeditions

(http://www.perunature.com/) is a Peruvian ecotourism company that shares with visitors in a sustainable manner the miracles of the Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Zone, 1.5 million hectares of pristine, still wild, tropical rainforest encompassing an area of land the size of Connecticut and stretching from the Andean highlands to the Amazon lowlands. It includes the Tambopata National Reserve, a 275,000-hectare conservation unit created by the Peruvian government in 1990 to protect the watersheds of the Tambopata and Candamo rivers. Conservation and ecotourism is helping to protect some of the last untouched lowland and premontane tropical humid forests in the Amazon.

Since 1989, guests of first one and now three Rainforest Expedition eco-lodges have added value to the region’s standing tropical rainforest. A sensitively conceived and managed (in some cases by native communities) touristic infrastructure creates a competitive alternative to such unsustainable economic uses as clear cutting the forest for timber or for cattle grazing. The partnerships Rainforest Expeditions has forged with local people eager to share Amazonian traditions with guests provide connection, expertise, adventure and access to wildlife in the jungles of Tambopata. Rainforest Expeditions has been verified and certified “a sustainable tourism business” by the Rainforest Alliance http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/.

Rainforest Expeditions’ string of three jungle lodges is accessed from Puerto Maldonado airport with flights arriving daily from Lima or Cusco. Motorized wooden canoes then take guests on a 45-minute trip to the first lodge, Posada Amazonas. Refugio Amazonas, the second lodge, is a 3.5-hour boat trip from Puerto Maldonado. The third and most remote is Tambopata Research Center, requiring a 4-hour additional upriver boat ride from Refugio Amazonas.  Each lodge is only a few minutes on foot from the river bank.  See: http://www.perunature.com/tambopata-jungle-lodges-puerto-maldonado.html.

Contact: Toll-Free US number: 1-(877)-231-9251 / Email: [email protected]