A Hidden Treehouse Stay in the Amazon Rainforest
If you’ve ever dreamt of visiting a place virtually unknown to the world, waking up to monkeys outside your window in your own treehouse, and living a life similar to Tarzan and Jane, then do I have the place for you!
Hidden deep in the middle of the jungle, an hour and a half boat ride away from any type of civilization, lies the beautiful Treehouse Lodge.
Now you may be thinking, “Sarah, what is there to do in the Amazon Rainforest that would be worth visiting?” Well I’ll tell you…
During our 3 day/2 night stay in the Amazon Rainforest, we went on five different excursions that ranged from hiking to meeting with the “river people”. There was more than enough to keep us busy, but the downtime between excursions was just the right amount of relaxation we needed!
I have written out, in great detail, our experience at the Treehouse Lodge, our excursions, and our glowing review! Truly, if you are looking for a once-in-a-lifetime luxury experience at an affordable price, this is the place to go!
Arriving at the Treehouse Lodge
Upon arrival in Iquitos, Peru, we were immediately greeted by two men who would be taking us from Iquitos to the Amazon Rainforest. The drive to the river was roughly an hour and a half. Throughout the duration of the drive, we passed beautiful scenery and got to see the locals in their native habitats.
Iquitos is a giant island with roughly 500,000 people on it. The interesting part is that there is no way to get to Iquitos unless it is by boat or plane. There is one main road and that goes the length of the island, and that is it. With that many people, you’d think there would be a bridge or something connecting it to the main part of Peru, but nope!
Once arriving at the river, we were transported to a tiny little boat that felt even with the waterline. Once situated, it was roughly an hour and a half long boat ride from the city to the Treehouse Lodge on the Yarapa River. While on the main river, you were surrounded by trees and wildlife. You could see Amazonian dolphins jumping in the distance, monkeys jumping from branch to branch, and macaws flying overhead.
While the boat ride was absolutely amazing, it was nice to finally pull up to the Treehouse Lodge.
After exiting the boat, we were taken up the stairs to a gorgeous walkway that led to the common area.
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Our guide, Roberto and Trent[/caption][caption id=”attachment_382" align=”alignnone” width=”818"]
This picture of the Common Area was taken from their website because I forgot to take one somehow[/caption]
Upon arriving at the common area, our guide, Roberto, took our bags to our treehouse. We were greeted with fresh cocona juice and a delicious lunch. Cocona juice is made of yellow Amazonian tomatoes and almost tasted like a tropical fruit juice. It was delicious!
We were shown to our treehouse after lunch (Treehouse #9) to settle in before we ventured into the Amazon jungle for a day-to-night hike.
Our Treehouse
Treehouse #9 is called Serena. It is one of their largest and newest treehouses. You are given the option to pick your treehouse when booking your trip. We decided to go with Treehouse 9 because it was one of the ones that was furthest into the jungle and most secluded. Treehouse 10 is nearby, but it’s the only other treehouse around out of the twelve to choose from.
For 3 days/ 2 nights, for double occupancy it was $695/person!
Included with that $695/person:
- Pickup/Drop-off at Iquitos Airport (or hotel in Iquitos)
- All transportation via land/river throughout your stay with Treehouse Lodge
- All meals and snacks
- Filtered water and juice
- Private guide (English/Spanish)
- ALL excursions of your choice
- Lodging in your very own treehouse!
That breaks down to about $231/day/person for all excursions, meals, lodging, transportation, and a private guide…you are going to have to try HARD to convince me that that is not a good deal. This isn’t your normal type of trip either. This is truly a luxury experience that few get to ever take advantage of.
This treehouse is roughly 40 feet in the air and definitely secluded. The walk to the common area was quite far, compared to the other treehouses, but very worth the extra walk! Underneath our bridge was the perfect view of the river, where you could stop and enjoy the dolphins jumping beneath you.
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Normally I am not one to be afraid of heights. Although, when you are 40 feet above the ground and this little rope bridge to your treehouse is more mobile than I realized. You’ll find yourself holding onto the railings and moving just a little slower than normal! I had no idea Trent wasn’t following behind me when I was taking this video. I got about halfway through and started feeling the bouncing, turned around to see him jumping on the dang bridge!
The beds were covered in mosquito netting, which was nice and kind of added a romantic canopy vibe to the bed. It was fun crawling into bed and zipping ourselves into the net. The beds were two twin beds (able to be separated upon request) and were quite comfortable. I thought the blanket they provided was going to be way too hot, given the temperature, but it was perfect! Especially with the fan blowing on us. As the sun set, a nice cool breeze took over instead.
The treehouses are built around the actual tree trunk. They made sure to build these treehouses in a way that caused little to no damage to the trees they built them on. This means each treehouse is designed differently to fit the shape of the trunk.
We were given two chairs to sit in, a laundry hamper, and some cubby shelves to put our stuff in.
There was also an extra twin bed.
Now this was an experience in itself! Imagine yourself enjoying an ice cold shower after a long day in the heat and humidity. When all of a sudden, you make eye contact with a monkey swinging past you in the trees. Or maybe you see some beautiful multi-colored birds and amphibians resting right outside your window. Hard to imagine how cool that would be, huh?
Side note — the treehouses do not have access to warm water or a lot of water at once. So you can’t be taking a long shower, or you’ll run out of water. You also will be taking a cold shower, but that’s part of the experience! From what I understand, there is a reservoir for your treehouse that includes enough water for your stay but not much extra.
Our Day-to-Night Hike
At 4:00pm, we met with Roberto to start our first of many excursions. It was 95*F, but we were required to wear clothing that covered every inch of our body and put on our mud boots. The lodge provides these for you.
***Something important to note — make sure you spray your clothes with special bug spray before leaving for your trip and bring a full bottle with you as well. The mosquitos are relentless.
Throughout the hike, we saw all sorts of animals and plants we had no idea existed. We even stumbled upon some hallucinogenic shrooms and were taught how to make them in a way that gave you the best high. Ha! We didn’t try them, but it was interesting to learn about!
The first of the animals we saw was a family of five night time monkeys that came out of their tree to see what was going on. Roberto was phenomenal with animal calls and was able to mimic their call perfectly to get their attention.
They are kind of hard to see at first, but I have circled them in the picture above. It was a mom, dad, and three babies that popped out to see what was going on! Roberto was so excited that they actually came out because apparently it is very rare to see them during a day or a night hike.
We saw plenty of different ants, a flock of blue and yellow macaws, baby frogs that were bigger than a softball, two wild guinea pigs, albino frogs, Amazonian treefrogs (the colorful ones with the webbed toes), scorpion spiders that were the size of my hand, multiple pink-toed tarantulas, and more. Whenever around any animals or their nests, it was critical that you moved constantly — remember this for later.
He doesn’t look very big in this picture, but I promise you he was bigger than the size of a softball. Those leaves on the ground were at least 6–8 inches long.
My real life horror movie moment…
As we were nearing the end of our hike, we stopped to look at a porcupine and monkeys playing up in the tree. It was completely pitch black out at this point. I stopped on a little hill to watch them play in the trees, because it had a great view! All of a sudden, I felt a pinch on my leg and swiped at it. Thinking it was just an itch, you can imagine my surprise when I felt something hard. I brushed at it again and it wouldn’t go away! Shining my flashlight down at my legs, I saw over 100 spiders crawling up my body at once!!!
I screamed and almost started crying as Trent and Roberto brushed them all off me. I mean, we’re in the Amazon with creatures never before seen by modern civilization. It was definitely freaky! After that, I was ready to go back to the treehouse. Unfortunately, we were only halfway out of the jungle and many of those spiders hid away in my mud boots. They continued to crawl out throughout the remainder of the walk. Roberto said tomorrow we’ll take the boat.
For dinner, we were served a delicious chicken and rice meal drizzled with a garlic sauce and some veggies. Dessert was fried bananas in vanilla yogurt and granola. Yum!
Our Jungle Cruise
Breakfast this morning was not your traditional breakfast. It was meat, cheese, fruit, and yogurt. They do not have the ability to keep everything as cold as back home because their ice is brought in from Iquitos once a week and is very limited. That’s okay! I didn’t come to the Amazon to eat an American breakfast! I came to experience their lifestyle!
After breakfast, we were off for a jungle cruise!
Thank goodness…no more spiders to crawl up my legs. While yesterday’s hike was filled with horrible humidity, the breeze on the boat made the humidity non-existent! That was wonderful, given it was still probably 90*F. Everywhere you looked, monkeys were jumping through the trees, macaws were flying overhead, and pink Amazonian dolphins were jumping out of the water. The entire boat ride felt like a fairytale. The weather was so beautiful and comfortable.
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After about an hour and a half of cruising around, Roberto pulled the boat over and said it was time to “fish for dinner!” By that, he meant we were going fishing for piranha!
While fishing for piranha, we got caught in what the Amazonian locals call a “male’s cry”. It’s called that because it rained very hard for 15–20 minutes and was over after that. A “female’s cry” is a long and soft rain that is prolonged for hours. We experienced a warm downpour that lasted about 15 minutes. Getting soaking wet isn’t usually my idea of a good time, but I was beaming from ear-to-ear while caught in this storm. Amazon rainstorms happen daily in the rainforest. I was thrilled to be able to experience one!
While the piranha were biting constantly, we weren’t catching any in that spot. We decided to go into two separate little coves instead and we hit the jackpot on the last one!
Trent caught six piranha and I caught four! Only seven were large enough to keep for dinner though.
If you know Trent and I, you’ll know there is nothing more that we hate than seafood. Like don’t even bring it near us. But we both decided we were going to try it because it was a piranha caught in the Amazon Rainforest. That opportunity wasn’t necessarily going to present itself again anytime soon!
There wasn’t much meat on them and they kind of tasted like chicken. They were very lean fish. I’m sure you could guess, but their teeth were very sharp as well!
After fishing, we returned for lunch and enjoyed a nice nap in the hammocks before our afternoon and evening excursions.
Visiting the Locals
This afternoon consisted of visiting the locals, or “river people” upstream. We took the little boat up and made a couple pitstops along the way. One was to see lily pads that were roughly the size of a Christmas tree skirt.
The village had maybe 300 people total living there. The homes had no walls, so you could see inside each family’s home. There was no furniture and the adults slept on hammocks, the children on the floor. Sometimes you really do forget just how fortunate you are.
The village had a little school, a bar, a shaman, and Roberto made sure to point out the village prostitute!
While visiting with the villagers, we were given the chance to purchase their hand-crafted creations and play with a baby rescue monkey! Trent bought a few paintings from them that were quite beautifully done! We have a travel wall and it was fun to get those framed and added. With every trip we try to get something unique and creative specific to that culture.
This was the little baby monkey that they rescued. It’s mama was nowhere around and it was hurt, so they took it in to care for it. That box was probably 10 inches long, for size reference.
Nighttime Caiman Spotting
It was dusk by the time we returned from the village. Just enough time for dinner before we went out to look for caimans! These little guys are in the crocodile family and the babies come out in the dusk/nighttime to play.
We cruised along the river until it was pitch black out before we finally stumbled upon one. Roberto asked us if we wanted to hold it. Needless to say, we were pretty skeptical! That’s when he explained that you can stun a caiman by shining a light in their eyes. It is completely harmless to them, and allowed us to bring one on board to really admire it.
As long as you keep a light shined in it’s eyes, it won’t move. The second the light is gone, it starts moving again like nothing happened.
Moments after this picture was taken the light accidentally moved off it. The caiman started violently squirming around in my hands, trying to get loose!
To say I freaked out was an understatement. I would like to make it known that I do not condone animal violence, nor did I mean to throw this caiman! But when it started thrashing around, I “yeeted” (threw) that thing so hard at Roberto, and before we knew it, there was a wild crocodile loose in our boat!
Roberto was very calm and managed to get ahold of it quickly. He was able to put it back in the water before we all had tears running down our face from laughing so hard! I’m glad he was such a good sport. Between freaking out about the 100+ spiders crawling up my body at once and throwing a crocodile at him, this man surely thought I was a city girl not cut out for rainforest life!
Feeding the Wild Monkeys
We woke up on our final morning in the Amazon to quite a fun surprise! Roberto greeted us with a giant bag of bananas and asked if we were ready to have fun! We were told we would go for one last jungle cruise before it was time to head back to Iquitos, but we were not told we would be getting the chance to feed and interact with the WILD monkeys!
That was the part that was so surreal to me. You see monkeys in the zoo all the time, right? It felt like no big deal to see them! But when you start thinking about how these monkeys are in their native habitat and YOU are the one coming into their home, it really changes the way you see everything and makes you appreciate it so much more!
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As we were strolling along the river, we finally found a family of Wooly Monkeys. Roberto did his special animal calls to get their attention! He found a giant stick and put half a banana on the end of it for us to hand to the monkeys.
Look at that level on concentration! He’s hanging onto the tree with his tail to reach as far as he could.
*Nom nom nom*
“More, please!”
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It didn’t take long for us to run out of bananas, as it was a family of five or six monkeys that were feeding off them. When we ran out, all of a sudden a Spider Monkey saw what we were doing and wanted to get in on the action. We were out of bananas though! This made the little guy mad and he decided to take matters into his own hands.
He waited for us to get close enough and then…
HE JUMPED INTO OUR BOAT! We had a wild monkey in our boat, climbing all over Trent and Roberto, looking for bananas!!
LOOK AT THAT FACE!!!! This is one of my favorite pictures of all time!
Unfortunately, we had no bananas left to give. Once the monkey figured that out, he jumped back into the trees and climbed away.
When that surprise was over, we went on a dolphin sighting cruise to spend the rest of the morning looking for pink and gray Amazonian dolphins. We swapped stories, Roberto shared some of his knowledge with us, and we shared quite a few laughs. It was a wonderful end to our three day, two night stay in the Amazon Rainforest.
Yes, this is on water!
After enjoying one last cruise on the Amazon river, finding many dolphins, and coming face-to-face with more Amazonian creatures than we expected to, it was time to head back to the treehouse to gather our belongings. The lodge cooked a delicious farewell lunch for us before we set sail back to the mainland!
As it was time to leave, we took a final bug bite count…
- Sarah left with 157 bug bites
- Trent left with 0 bug bites
I really have no idea how he had absolutely NO bug bites, but I was pretty bitter about that! To be fair, the majority of my bites came from my horror movie experience. My back, legs, and butt looked like red, lumpy cottage cheese and he got out with nothing! Even so, it was beyond worth it for this once-in-a-lifetime adventure! And to my surprise, the bites were all gone within three days.
So there you have it! Our wonderful time in the Amazon Rainforest has sadly come to an end. The treehouse was such an amazing experience. I have to admit, after the issue with the 100+ spiders crawling up my body, I was a little skeptical of this place. I would come back here in a heartbeat though. There really are no words to describe the magnificent beauty that comes with entering a hidden part of the world.
The reason we chose to visit the Amazon Rainforest in Peru is because this is where much of the wildlife is. The Rainforest that lies in other parts of South America are not as vibrant with their wildlife and consist more of forestry.
Have you ever dreamed of living in a treehouse in the middle of the Amazon? If so, share this with your friends and let me know below in the comments! I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you may have as well!
