They say that the Amazonía is the only place where you have the sensation of being in the dawn of the world. Conscious of its diversity, its forests and its rivers, thousands of travellers arrive at cities like Puertot Maldonado, the capital of the department of Madre de Dios, to initiate from there a route of emotions, revelations and findings.

Founded on July 10th in 1902 with the name on tribute to the explorer Faustino Maldonado, who crossed waters of the river Madre de Dios until his confluence with the Tambopata river, Puerto Maldonado is the entrance to three of the national parks of the Peruvian Amazonía, natural treasures that lodge an extraordinary diversity of species of flora and wild fauna: Manu, Bahuaja-Sonene and Tambopata-Candamo.

The National Park of Manu is the bigest protected natural area of its kind in Peru. Located in the departments of Cusco and Madre de Dios, it includes the totality of the river basin of the Manu river.

Furrowing the Tambopata river or the river Madre de Dios you can arrive at the National Park Bahuaja-Sonene (Tambopata-Heath) and by the Heath river you can get to Pampas of the Heath, unique vegetal formation, a kind of savannah nailed in deep of the tropical forests of Peru and the refuge of single species of wild fauna.

By the Tambopata river, you can get to the Tambopata-Candamo, Reserved Zone well-known to have one of the bigest diversities mammals species, trees, insects and birds of the world.

The celebrations of Madre de Dios, as the celebration of San Juan in June or the Tourist and Ecological week are excellent reasons to enjoy the regional food and to enjoy a refreshing bath at the Sandoval lake or to fish in the Valencia lake, while you observe a great variety of vegetal species, fish and wild fauna.

Photograph: PromPerú