Tapiche Reserve — Attraction in Tapiche

My wife and I went to this place in Jan 2025. The objective was photopmgraphing red uakaris. This lodge is far and not easy to get to. The owners make you ride on a public bus to Nauta from Tarapoto (at 430am), and then on a public water bus to requena. During this journey of up to 12 hours, they do not supply you with any water or food.

There is no reason that private transport to nauta from Tarapoto cannot be supplied, along with a decent breakfast.

The lodge itself is very old (with the exception of the walkway and new rooms). There is mold everywhere, discarded wood planks, nails sticking out of old posts. The place is very unkept.

The staff is not very friendly and we ran low on food after 3 days on a 6 night stay.

Even though we had made it quite clear that our objective was red uakari monkey photography, the management raised objections and were rude to us (Aiden). However, the guides were beyond helpful and accommodating.

During our stay, we never had our bedding changed or new bath towels provided.

After the trip we were accused via WhatsApp by the US coordinator of "not tipping enough" and having supplied false booking information (this is after exchanging emails). This is the 1st time in over 100 expeditions that we have ever been accused of not tipong enough by office staff (who were not present when we tipped the staff).

If you want to see the Amazon, you don't need to go so far. There are plenty of options around Nauta. Tapiche does not have primary rainforest for tourists.

It is best to avoid this place and the hassle.

If you want to photograph red uakaris, make sure you negotiate your itinerary and requests beforehand to avoid unpleasant surprises and rude staff.

Lastly, I contacted the director by WhatsApp and email prior to writing this review, however my correspondances were ignored.

We will not...

This year I was blessed with opportunities to get into wild pockets of the planet, the further I went the deeper I desired to go.

One of the highlights of this years cornucopia of adventure was visiting the @tapichejungle reserve in Northern Peru. The trip involved planes and many hours on river boats, but Golly, I’d return ten times over.

Chalk full of animals, plants, and … the FUNGI was astounding!!! I counted over 40 unique fruiting species. There was a blitz of monkeys, including a rare and elusive red huacari monkey (pictured).

By dawns light we head to the trails to hike and enjoy the wildlife for the better part of the day. Each day was unique, and of course nothing guaranteed, but our group had a good energy and the animals came out for us. In the evenings we trolled the Tapiche River by boat for a relaxing bird, caimen, and turtle watching excursion by sunset. We even saw a myriad of river dolphins!!! Dreams come true people. Literally.

This reserve is a prime example of how conservation and stewardship is vital to wild places. Everyday forces like logging, hunting and extraction put a strain on our diverse forests, and if it weren’t for people selflessly dedicating time and energy to protecting swathes of habitat and also working with local communities… I’m afraid our world wouldn’t be as magical.

I am so thankful for this visit to Tapiche Reserve and dream to return ASAP during the flood season to witness the forest completely inundated by water!! Anyone...

One in a lifetime experience and amazing adventure in the Amazonian jungle.

Aidan was an awesome guide, he did everything he could to offer us the best and most complete experience possible. It was the end of the flooded season so we spent a lot of time on the boat, although, Aiden got us several awesome opportunities to go on dry land as well and explore by walking,looking for those Jaguars and anacondas. The entire staff in tapiche reserve were amazing, super interesting persons to talk to, very curious to get to know you and receiving you super well (we made a nice friendship with Julio and Segundo).

The food was super tasty, abundant, and quite nutritious!

We saw a lot of animals, specially 7 different monkey species, coatis, opossum, caymans, snakes, spiders and other insects, frogs, etc.

The group was quite small (5 total).

The trip to get to the lodge is quite long, but time flies by, while you are distracted with your surroundings (the jungle, forest, villages along the way). Also, everything is super well organized concerning the logistics to get to the reserve.

The experience of being totally isolated in the Amazon forest is unique and we highly recommend going with...