Explore the Full Amazon Jungle Experience from Leticia, Amazonas

Summary: Went for a deep jungle tour, and felt like been at Bear grills tv show on Discovery channel. Amazing experience! This tour can turn also into a survival tour, although there is plenty of food. Learned lots of survival skills: how to make cabins, fire, purify water, and more.

Summary: A friend and I did a private tour for the 3 day and 2 night Zacumbu and Javari river. Our guide was Alci. Sophia was our translator. Mideiro was our boat operator. It was such a wonderful experience! Words could not describe how full my heart feels coming back from this tour. I will start with the hostel, Casa De La Palmas. This was our meet up spot to meet our tour guide. The people working the hostel were very kind and accommodating to the limited time we had in Leticia. We were able to start at 11am due to our arrival time. When asked ahead of time, they provided lunch before we took off for the tour. They were also very accommodating in letting shower and helped us do laundry as quickly as possible when we returned from the tour before having to fly out again. The driver of the hostel was also helpful in declining solicitors who tried to take our luggage for a tip at the airport. Our travel itinerary included looking for pink dolphins, watching the sunset over the lake searching for caiman at night, piranha fishing, visiting a monkey sanctuary, a short jungle trek at night to spot out spiders, one night at the zacambu lodge, and one night sleeping in hammocks in the jungle (optional, can choose to stay at the lodge). Now for the lodge! We stayed at the reserve in the zacambu lodge. You get a room to share within your group. It has 5 beds and includes a mosquito net. There are toilets and a shower, but expect cold water showers; it's not that bad though because it was so hot and humid everyday. We were there in mid-June so we had just missed rainy season and was at the start of summer. There's a "bar" area to buy beers, cold drinks, bottled water, and snacks. All 3 meals are included during the stay here. The residents at the lodge are very welcoming and try their best to ensure that we had a good time. I absolutely loved seeing the pink dolphins. Alci and Mideiro were very knowledgeable on where to find the dolphins and how to attract them to us. Everytime we heard or saw the dolphins throughout our trip, they stopped the boat for us to watch them play. We had the option to swim in the lake at sunset. The sunset was breathtaking. Caiman hunting took place at night. We couldn't find any the first night so we tried again the 2nd night. Alci guided Mideiro in the dark and shined the light to spot out the caimans eyes (they glow in the dark). We did find one baby caiman. Alci grabbed it out of the water to show us. Don't worry everyone! You're in the safety of the boat the entire time. Piranha fishing took place on the second day after breakfast. They provided us fishing sticks, hooks, and chicken skin to catch them. You have to splash the water with the sticks to attract them. I was able to catch a white piranha and a red one 😊 after a couple of hours, you return to the lodge to eat them. There are other things to eat as well in case if you choose not to. After lunch, we went to the monkey sanctuary. The sanctuary is called Reserva Pirarucu. They don't have a website just yet, but definitely want to give them a big shoutout; I really want to come back just to visit this sanctuary. They take in injured monkeys for 30-45 days to nurse them back to health and release them back into the wild, but they generally come back. The monkeys are free to come and go as they please. There's no cage or anything like that. It's just the jungle. The monkeys were so friendly, playful, and cuddly! They also have 2 anacondas. These are in a big enclosure since they're so rare and hard to see. They also have 10 pirarucu fish (ancient fishes with lungs in their gills and have ears) in their open lake. These things were huuuuugeeeeeee!!! They let us feed the pirarucu fish. There was no time limit here and we stayed for the rest of the afternoon until evening with the monkeys. After returning from the monkey sanctuary, caiman hunting and dinner, we left to our camping area for our one night in the jungle. We did a 15 min trek through the jungle and looked for tarantulas along the way to our camp. We had black tarp to shelter us from the rain, a hammock underneath, a mosquito net, and a blanket. It actually wasn't that bad! It was awesome hearing Alcis stories about growing up in the jungle, the different animals he has come across, the different indigenous tribes there are in the jungle, medicinal plants, and their way of life. One thing I just can't get over is how they are able to navigate through the jungle, which river to go up/down, which bush of trees to go through, etc etc. Check this tour company out! I can honestly say that I want to come back for the 5 day tour into the jungle to see more animals.