Amazon Odyssey

Arrive at Santarém’s Maestro Wilson Fonseca Airport (STM), where the AWA team will meet you at the airport’s single exit and transfer you to your hotel in Alter do Chão. After time to freshen up, enjoy a gentle sunset boat ride with complimentary drinks and an introduction to your guides, crew and fellow explorers. Return to the hotel for dinner and a good night’s rest.

Sunset cruise • Meet the team • Hotel stay

After breakfast at 7:00 a.m., depart at 7:30 a.m. to explore Santarém’s fish and traditional oil markets, local museum and cathedral, and the meeting of the Amazon and Tapajós rivers. Stop briefly at a university manatee rehabilitation program. Around midday, board the Amazon Dream riverboat, settle into your cabin and enjoy lunch as we travel toward the Maicá wetlands. Watch for pink river dolphins, macaws and caiman lizards, and learn about AWA’s conservation work with IPBio. After dinner, set out by motorboat in search of nocturnal wildlife, including caimans and capybaras.

Markets • Manatees • Riverboat • Night safari

Wake to birdsong over Maicá Lake and explore its waterways by motorboat. Continue toward Canal do Jari, with sandy beach stops and an introduction to the Amazon Basin’s formation and the evolution of biodiversity. In Canal do Jari, an area where IPBio has recorded more than 139 bird species, search for roseate spoonbills, black-collared hawks and other wildlife. Depending on season and river levels, explore the sloth trail on foot or by canoe, looking for sloths, squirrel monkeys, potoos and perhaps even a boa or anaconda.

Birdwatching • Beaches • Sloth trail

Visit the São Marcos community to learn how cassava is processed into farinha and why it has long been essential to Indigenous agriculture, food security and regional exchange. Continue to the Coroca community to learn about turtle conservation and sample locally produced honey from native bees. End the day at the beaches of Urucureá with a memorable waterside dinner.

Cassava traditions • Turtle conservation • Beach dinner

Begin with a gentle forest walk, listening for monkeys and watching for movement in the canopy. Meet riverside artisans in Urucureá, learning how forest fibers and natural pigments become handcrafted pieces. Following lunch aboard the Amazon Dream, travel toward the Tapajós National Forest (FLONA), learn about the history of rubber production and explore quiet rainforest waterways by canoe.

Forest walk • Artisan crafts • Canoeing

Take on a 9-kilometer forest hike to a magnificent samaúma (Ceiba pentandra), one of the Amazon’s iconic giant trees. The trail is not especially steep, and a river swim offers a refreshing finish. Prefer an easier day? Feel free to relax aboard the riverboat instead; another smaller samaúma is included later. Continue toward Bragança, stopping for traditional piranha fishing. After dark, meet Munduruku Indigenous hosts for a forest-based cultural encounter.

9 km forest hike • Samaúma • Munduruku encounter

After a relaxed morning aboard the boat, meet Munduruku visitors to learn about crafts and, for those interested, traditional body painting. Visit Lago Verde and its flooded forest, then continue to Alter do Chão’s Ilha do Amor. At sunset, gather on the beach for a piracaia, a traditional riverside fish barbecue, accompanied by regional food, music from Pará and carimbó dancing. This is your farewell to the riverboat chapter.

Flooded forest • Ilha do Amor • Piracaia

Leave the Amazon Dream riverboat after breakfast and travel in comfortable, air-conditioned vehicles toward Rurópolis, stopping for birdwatching along the way. After checking into the hotel, visit two caves to explore underground biodiversity, ancient rock art and traces of now-extinct giant ground sloths, Eremotherium laurillardi. Before sunset, we will go bird watching and hopefully see scarlet and hyacinth macaws among other stunning species.

Overland journey • Caves • Macaws

Visit two waterfalls near Rurópolis in the morning before returning to the hotel and checking out. Drive back toward Alter do Chão, entering Tapajós National Forest from the landward side for birdwatching and another impressive samaúma tree. Stop in Belterra, a town created by automobile billionaire Henry Ford in his attempt to develop a rubber-producing empire in the Amazon. Return to your hotel in Alter do Chão for dinner.

Waterfalls • Forest • Belterra history

At Ilha do Amor, take part in local reforestation by planting trees—a meaningful way to contribute to the place you have spent the past days exploring. In the afternoon, visit IPBio’s Jutuarana Reserve for a behind-the-scenes look at biodiversity research involving insects, fungi and mammals. After dinner at the hotel, join one final guided night walk to search for amphibians and discover the hidden world of fluorescence and bioluminescence—a fittingly unforgettable finale to your Amazon Odyssey.

Tree planting • Research reserve • Nocturnal wildlife

Share a final breakfast and memories of the journey. The AWA team can help you arrange your next travel stage, whether you are heading to Santarém Airport or extending your stay in the region. You may be leaving the Amazon, but its rivers, forests, people, and wildlife have a way of staying with you long after the adventure ends.

Breakfast • Departure