Peru Vacations: Puerto Maldonado Peru Vacations

Tourists come from around the world to discover Madre de Dios' treasure: Manu National Park. You can see wonderful landscapes, mysterious forests, beautiful lakes and wildlife.

PUERTO MALDONADO BASIC FACTS

Area or Surface: 85,183 km².
Main Resources: rice, yuca, coconut, rubber, wood, gold.
Population: 76,000 inhabitants. The capital is Puerto Maldonado and has 46,732 inhabitants.
Number of Provinces and Districts: 3 provinces and 10 districts.
Date of Department Foundation: December 26, 1912.
Ethnic Groups: machiguengas, mashcos, campas.
Typical foods: pataraschca, sopa de motelo, timbuche, masato, tacacho.
Fauna:
reptiles (boa constrictor, shushupe, naka naka)
Lizards (white lizard and black lizard)
Birds (blue partridge, sharara, cushuri, herons, camungo, parrots, guacamayos)
Monkeys (frailecillo, pichicos)
Felines (jaguar, tigrillo, puma)
Fish (zúngaro and paiche).
Flora: cedar and mahogany.

PUERTO MALDONADO HISTORY

In 1566, Mr. Juan Alvarez de Maldonado, heading an important expedition, went through the territory of Madre de Dios and navigated this river. However, in 1860 the most important expedition was lead by Mr. Faustino Maldonado. After traveling the Ucayali and Urubamba Rivers, Maldonado arrived in Cusco. After staying two months in this city, he departed to Madre de Dios navigating by the Piñipiñi, Madre de Dios, and Madeira Rivers with the purpose of going back to the starting point. However, he died after drowning in the Madeira. His son continued the expedition and completed the scheduled route with the other survivors.
By the end of the 19th century, the "caucheros" (rubber men) would go scout the territory in search of rubber and shiringa trees. The most famous rubber man was Fermín Fitzcarrald. In 1893 he discovered an isthmus, which has since been named after him as the "Varadero de Fitzcarrald".

PUERTO MALDONADO GEOGRAPHY

Populating with Peru is the department less, its auriferous wealth returns promising its future, counts with abundant flora and wild fauna. Its territory is rough in the southern sector, due to the abutments of the Mountain range of Carabaya. In central and North the zones, dominion of the Low Forest, essentially presents/displays a relief constituted by plains without importance accidents. One is alluvial plains formed by three and up to four levels of terraces. Lowest they are put under annual floods and they are generally marshy. To the west of the department, in the zone where they are the easts of the Manu River, hills of little elevation exist that form dividing of waters between the Rivers Mother of God and Urubamba. In these hills, and separating the easts of the Cashpajali River, it is the Itsmo de Fitzcarrald, call thus in tribute to his discoverer. The territory of the department is crossed by a dense hydrographic network that the River Madre de God, navigable has like axis and important forest wealth. Between the rivers that emphasize more they find the Manu, Tahuamanu, Tambopata, Inambari and Heath.

PUERTO MALDONADO TOURISM

Puerto Maldonado is the capital of the department. Tourists come from around the world to discover Madre de Dios' treasure: Manu National Park. You can see wonderful landscapes, mysterious forests and beautiful lakes.
Its flora and fauna are unique and indescribable. Much of it has not even been classified yet. It covers more than a million and a half hectares, which hold a surprising variety of ecosystems of great scientific interest.

ATTRACTIONS IN PUERTO MALDONADO PERU

MANU BIOSPHERE RESERVE:
The Manu Biosphere Reserve is 1´881,200 hectares in area, and is divided into three sections, Manu National Park, Manu Reserved Area, where research and tourist activities are carried out, and the Multiple Use Area, where there are human settlements and environmental activities are developed.
Manu's environment has been unchanged for thousands of years, thus allowing more species of plants and animals to evolve here than in any other similar park in the world. Numerous species threatened with extinction are protected in the Reserve, such as the rock cockerel (Rupicola peruviana), the national bird of Peru, the wild goose (Neochen jubata), the bandit monkey (Lagothrix lagothricha), and felines like the jaguar or "otorongo" (Felis onca) and the ocelot (Felis pardalis).
The so called "Colpa" of the Macaws is one of the biggest attractions in Manu. The "colpa" is a mineral-rich earth formation which numerous wild animals -among them the noisy, colorful macaws - feed on to supplement their normal diet.

TAMBOPATA - CANDAMO RESERVED AREA:
Research carried out over the last 14 years has found this area, with over one million square hectares, to have an astonishingly high biological diversity. There are 575 species of bird, 1,200 species of butterfly, 103 species of dragonfly, 135 types of arboreal ant, 103 types of mammals, over 60 kinds of amphibian, 67 types of reptile, snake, serpent or viper, 5 species of turtle, 4 of crocodile and 22 of small lizard. Finally 94 species of fish have also been identified!
Futhermore researchers have concluded that there are intact populations of species like the giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis), the mount dog (Speothos venaticus), the black lizard (Melanosuchus niger) and shrew eagle (Harpia harpyja) in this area, all of them threatened with extinction.
Another of Tambopata-Candamo's attractions is the richness of its flora, as nearly 1400 species exist in the area. Indeed two 1 hectare sections of the reserve have been identified as amongst the richest pieces of land in the world, with one of them boasting 187 species of trees with a diameter greater than 2.5 centimeters, and the second one 207 species of plants, including trees, vines, bushes and aerophytes.

BAHUAJA-SONENE NATIONAL PARK:
Created on July 17th, 1996, this National Park includes part of the Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Area and the territory of the old Pampas del Heath National Sanctuary.
The area offers great potential for the protection of species since there are no permanent human settlements, so there are species found here which are extinct in other areas of the Amazon, such as the "sachavaca" or tapir (Tapirus terrestris) and the "maquisapa" or spider monkey (Ateles Paniscus).
In Bahuaja-Sonene, mammals like the swamp deer (Odocoileus dichotomus) and the biggest canine in the Amazon, the mane wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), are protected. The park is also a refuge for birds, as it is home to 450 species, 17 of which are native to Peru.