Puerto Maldonado Overview

V!VA User‘s Description

A dusty little town located just a half-hour plane ride from Cusco, Puerto Maldonado is the last stop for travelers heading into the infinitely more interesting Amazon jungle. Like many jungle towns, Puerto Maldonado has survived a series of boom and bust cycles, the first being a prosperous rubber industry in 1902. Gold mining and lumber soon followed suit, and continue today, though to a large extent tourism and Brazil nuts are on the rise. For the rainforest's sake, cross your fingers that responsible tourism takes off.

Characterized by wide avenues that narrow into mud lanes lined with unremarkable wooden buildings, the town offers little more to see than three-wheeled motocarros (motorcycle rickshaws) and scooters. For the most part, travelers use Puerto Maldonado as a jumping off point to nearby attractions like Lago Sandoval, the Tambopata National Reserve, and Bahuaja-Sonene National Park. Vastly more relaxed than its larger jungle-town relative Iquitos, Puerto Maldonado is a popular stop for Tambopata package tours.

Those keen to aprender más español, should definitely check out Tambopata Education Centre, one of the best language schools in the Peruvian Amazon. If you'd rather roll up your sleeves and delve into some much-needed volunteer work, there are a range of opportunities in the area, including as a field assistant at a biological research station, on a local farm, or on reforestation of the rainforest. Though most people blow through town without giving it much notice, it does have an alluring frontier-town atmosphere that some intrepid individuals may find interesting—at least for a night or two before bidding adieu to the ramshackle of humanity and heading into the heart of darkness.

NOTE: Because Puerto Maldonado is listed as part of the yellow fever endemic zone, travelers will need to be vaccinated. If you have already been vaccinated, don't forget to carry your card.