Napo Birding Trip

PACE: Moderate. Fairly early starts are necessary since birding is almost always best early in the morning, and breakfast will typically start between 5:00 and 5:30am. On most (but not all) days there will be some downtime after lunch to relax. You will usually get to the lodge before dark, but on at least one or two evenings there will be some nightbirding, meaning you will arrive back at the lodge after dark. At least four lunches will be packed lunches. The drives are not especially long on this tour, with the longest being about three hours on day 5. There are also boat rides on the Napo River of about 2 to 3 hours on day 8 and day 14, and shorter canoe and boat rides while in the Amazon Lodges. As afternoon birding is usually less productive than morning birding, some participants choose to skip some of the afternoon birding sessions and relax around the lodge instead.

PHYSICAL DIFFICULTY: Moderate. There will be a mixture of trail birding and road birding. Most of the trails and roads are flat or only slightly inclined, but we will bird some steeper and moderately difficult trails on at least three days of the tour (a walking stick helps a lot). Quite a bit of walking is required, and you can expect to walk around 3 miles (4.8 km) per day on average. Much of the first two days of the tour will be spent at high elevations ranging from 11,500-13,800 ft (3500-4200 m), though the night will be spent much lower at 8,500 ft (2600 m).