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ForbesFYI Magazine Summer 1999

ARTICLE ABOUT SANDOVAL LAKE LODGE APPEARED AT FORBESFYI MAGAZINE (Summer 99)

LAKEFRONT PROPERTY, PERU

On the banks of the Madre de Dios river, poised to walk into the teeming jungles of southeastern Perú, I echoed a question conquistadores Cortez and Pizarro must have asked themselves a million times: “Do I have want it takes to be an ecotourist?” Indeed, the Amazon jungle often strikes newcomers as lugubrious, largely because it’s hotter and wetter that Bonfouca, Louisiana, in July. But once I stood under the tangled canopy and listened to the raucous harmonizing of a million birds and bugs fear turned to fascination.

My destination was Sandoval Lake Lodge, which sits ion the northern edges of 2.5 million acres of unspoiled tropical wilderness. The quality of the wildlife viewing there is among the best in Perú: the lake’s uncommon richness in nutrients and the enormity of the adjoining flooded palm forest make it the habitat of choice for multitudes os exotic birds. On my first day I saw russet-backed oropendolas, yellow-rumped caciques, green ibises, black caimans (South American crocodilians), and countless hoatzins-large, clumsy birds that look like a cross between a vulture and a cuckoo. When the Lodge’s expert guide whistled the warning call of the blackfronted nunbird, an angry host of red bellied macaws came squawking wildly out of the trees, looking to intercept and expel an invading bird of prey. We were prevented from visiting Sandoval’s prized attractions-its giant otters (it has the largest populations in the world) by the most spectacular electrical storm I have ever witnessed.

By jungle-lodge standards, Sandoval is luxurious. It has two wings of private rooms with titled bathrooms, and electricity for six to ten hours a day. The main lodge is wonderfully breezy and spacious, with long tables for eating and a row of hammocks for Cerveza-drinking. It isn’t the Four Seasons, and there’s no mollycoddling of any kind. But if you make the sacrifice, fellow ecotraveler, you’ll witness Mother Earth at her darkest and most forbiddingly beautiful. We recommend you go to Sandoval lake Lodge with Abercrombie & Kent (800-323-7308). They’ll take you all over Perú, including Lima, Cuzco and Machu Picchu. In those places by the way, you will be mollycoddled.