Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and logging inside the park boundaries. In 1995, amid rising tension, the Bolivian govern-
ment gave in to political pressure and reduced the park by two thousand square kilometres,
creating a “Multiple-Use Zone” around its borders. This buffer zone is now largely defor-
ested, and the peasant farmers are beginning to encroach on the remaining park area. The
easiest parts of the park to reach are also the most likely to have been affected by this
en-
croachment
, though the pristine interior regions of the park are deliberately kept relatively
inaccessible. Nonetheless, the park refuges are set amid splendid, largely intact rainforest,
and the chances of spotting wildlife are fairly high. The park's higher-altitude southern sec-
tion, which includes beautiful
cloudforests
, can only be visited from Samaipata.
The Buena Vista section
From Buena Vista, a rough road runs southeast along the borders of the Multiple-Use Zone
(marked by the Río Surutú), passing through a series of settlements, the landscape around
which is heavily deforested. However, on the west side of the river the steep, densely forested
mountains of Amboró loom inviolate.
Some 20km from Buena Vista, the road reaches
Huaytú
, from where a rough track crosses
the river and enters the park. It then leads 14km to
La Chonta
, a park guards' station. There
are plenty of trails through the surrounding forest from here, and you can swim in the nearby
Río Saguayo
. About four hours' walk from here in the interior of the park is a site where
the extremely rare blue-horned currasow can be seen, while a tough day's walk downstream
along the Río Saguayo brings you to another park guards' station, Saguayo, from where it's
another day or so on foot back to Buena Vista.
Continuing along the main track beyond Huaytú for a further 15km brings you to the settle-
ment of
Santa Rosa
. From here, a rough 10km track crosses the river and heads to the park
guards' refuge at
Macuñuco
, inside the Multiple-Use Zone. There are plenty of trails here,
one of which leads to a delightful waterfall. A few kilometres before you reach Macuñuco
on this track, you pass the village of
Villa Amboró
, where there's another basic
refuge
and a
series of forest trails.
The Samaipata section
The southern border of the park lies just a dozen kilometres from
Samaipata
on the other
side of the
mountain ridge
that rises to the north, and is easy to visit with one of the town's
tour agencies
.
This section is much higher in altitude than the areas close to Buena Vista, and
is therefore ecologically very different, comprising beautiful cloudforest with gnarled trees
covered in lichen and epiphytes. Most one-day trips to Amboró head to the hamlet of
La
Yunga
, from where a short walk takes you into the
cloudforest
. Although you'll see large
numbers of rare and strangely prehistoric-looking tree ferns up to 10m high, this region lies
in the Multiple-Use Zone close to areas of human settlement, so the chances of seeing much
