Amazon Experience at Uakari Floating Jungle Lodge

Services start with pick-up at the airport or at a hotel in Tefé. Then you are taken to the harbour of Tefé Lake, where your boat departs for a 1 hour trip. Right after departure, you experience the "encounter of the waters", where the black waters of the lake meet the white waters of the Amazon River. You will see how massive the river is, and see local communities along the way.

You are welcomed in the impressive floating lodge by the local manager, the naturalist guide and all staff. Right after check-in, you go on a trail or canoe trip to experience the local nature. After dinner, you watch a presentation on the history of the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve and the projects that are being developed by Mamirauá Institute of Sustainable Development--a research unit funded and supervised by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Brazil.

Mornings start early at Uakari Lodge! By 06:30, you have breakfast and depart for activities at 07:00. The first thing you are doing today is visiting a local river in community. A local guide takes you on a tour around his/her village, shows the daily life by the river in a floodplain forest - water levels rise and fall about 12 meters every year, and that demands a lot of adaptation from local people!

You go back to the lodge at lunchtime - always very fresh food, mostly produced locally in the communities. You follow the local tradition and take some rest until 03:30 - 04:00 PM, when you head to your second activity of the day - a trail or a canoe trip if it's the rainseason.

Dinner is served around 07:00 and tonight you go on an adventure: a night trail! It is always impressive to go on this activity once you get to observe different animals and listen to very unique noises from the forest. If it's the rainy season, you go on a night boat trip.

After breakfast (with many of the local fruit and delicacies made out of the very- Brazilian manioc) you depart for a morning hike. Today, the trail is longer and you get to see many of the impressive Amazon trees and animals. If you are in the rainy season (and walking trails will be under water), you depart on a small canoe journey through the flooded forest - an experience you will never forget.

The silence of the canoe sliding through the waters, very close to the crown of the trees, will be interrupted by the screaming of the howler monkeys, the chant of the birds or by the diving of the aquatic animals. You go back for lunch and relax for a couple of hours in the hammocks of your room's porches that lay over the river.

You depart at 3:30 for a boat tour on Lake Mamirauá. It is your longest journey in the reserve and you'll get to learn more about the history of thearea, right from the local guides. When you reach the lake, you can have some snacks while appreciating the always-dramatic sunset. On the way back, spotlights are used to see nocturnal animals like the huge black caimans, that can be up to 4 meters long. Dinner and free time at night.

After breakfast, you depart at 07:00 to go fishing for piranhas, very abundant in this region. With the help of the local guides, you will learn why they can be so dangerous! You head back to the lodge, have lunch and some free time to rest-- talk to locals, read in the lodge's library or watch a documentary. In the afternoon, you have your last immersion in the jungle, taking a trail or canoe trip. At night, after dinner, biologists who conduct researches in the area will come to the lodge to introduce you to the world of science, bringing information about a local animal--the result of their work and how scientific research helps the development of conservation strategies in the reserve.

It is your last moments at Uakari Lodge. You will have breakfast at 5:30 am and depart at 06:00 AM to Tefé (airport or hotel) during daylight saving time, or at 07:00 AM otherwise.

Flooding Season - April to August

No animal, including man, walks on solid ground on the reserve because it disappears under the water during these months. The trails are explored on small canoes and you will be closer to the tree canopies in a totally new environment, sharing space with bromiliads (plants which grow on branches), insects, and small reptiles.

Dry Season - September to March

A great spectacle of fish and their predators which are concentrated within a smaller volume of water. Thousands of aquatic birds migrate to the lakes within Mamirauá Reserve, sharing space with other predators like black caimans and pink dolphins, due to the abundance of fish in the area. The trails can be explored by foot in small groups, led by local guides.