7 top wildlife locations in Latin America
Latin America is a land of superlatives, home to many of the world’s largest and most biodiverse wildernesses. Needless to say the wildlife-spotting opportunities are phenomenal. Journey Latin America will take you on treks into untamed jungles and ethereal cloud forests and on boat trips around sprawling wetlands and along idyllic coastlines shores to get up close to some of the region’s most captivating creatures.
1: The Pantanal, Brazil
One of the planet’s most biodiverse wilderness areas, the Pantanal wetlands swathe 42 million acres of the central-western part of Brazil, lapping across into parts of Bolivia and Paraguay. They are the largest tropical wetlands in the world and are quite literally alive with extraordinary fauna. A staggering 4,700 species thrive here including caimans, hyacinth macaws, jaguars, giant anteaters, giant river otters, capybara, marmosets and tapirs. Join private walking and canoe tours around the Pantanal’s grasslands, lagoons and channels on Journey Latin America’s Wildlife Brazil: Jaguars of the Pantanal. You’ll also set off on night expeditions, the best time to see the park’s jaguars on the prowl. The Pantanal has the highest density of these big cats on the planet.
2: The Amazon Rainforest, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador
Venture into the heart of the world’s greatest rainforest and river system on Journey Latin America’s Luxury Peru: Andes to Amazon itinerary. You’ll navigate the mighty river and uncover some of the secrets of its dense jungle on a boat trip from the steamy jungle city of Iquitos in Peru. A naturalist will accompany you (on the boat and on foot) as you charter this extraordinarily biodiverse watery wilderness that offers close encounters with long-limbed spider monkeys, jewel-bright hummingbirds, toucans, pink dolphins and caimans. Home to millions of species, this mind-boggling tropical rainforest ecosystem extends across nine nations, including Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador where Journey Latin America also has expeditions.
3: Costa Rica
From lunar-like volcanic landscapes and mist-shrouded cloud forests to tropical rainforests and surf-pounded beaches, Costa Rica’s diverse landscapes are bursting with life and you can enjoy everything it has to offer on Journey Latin America’s Costa Rica Wildlife Discovery. The Montverde Cloud Forest is home to 120 species of mammals including howler monkeys and sloths and no less than 425 species of birds (including the bejewelled quetzal) and 658 species of butterflies. For an isolated slice of wilderness visit Tortuguero National Park on the northern Caribbean coast. Best explored by boat, you’re likely to spot caiman, manatees and hatching turtles at certain times of the year. The Corcovado National Park covers nearly half of the Osa Peninsula on the Pacific Coast with its lowland rainforests, cloud forests, mangroves and shoreline said to support 2.5 per cent of all the world’s species. Star spots are jaguars, pumas, ocelots and two and three toed sloths. The world’s most powerful bird of prey – the ferocious (and extremely rare) harpy eagle – also lives here.
4: Iberá Wetlands, Argentina
The largest big cat species in the Americas is now stalking through the grasslands of northeast Argentina once again. Thanks to groundbreaking rewilding efforts in the Iberá Wetlands, the jaguar was successfully reintroduced to Argentina. Giant river otters and anteaters have also been successful rewilding projects in this sinuous network of marshes, lagoons, waterways grasslands and subtropical forest found in the Corrientes province. Caiman, swamp deer, capybaras, wolves and howler monkeys inhabit the wilderness, which is a haven for birds too. Journey Latin America’s Argentina Wildlife private journey includes guided expeditions by boat, canoe and on foot to spot mammals and birds on its lagoons including kingfishers, owls and hawks along with rarer species like the white-headed marsh tyrant and sickle-winged nightjar.
Spot the wildlife of the Iberá Wetlands with Journey Latin America
5: Galápagos Islands
It’s a case of curious and curiouser on the Galápagos Islands, an isolated archipelago strewn in the Pacific Ocean off Ecuador where rare flora and fauna have flourished. These volcanic islands are a haven for all kinds of extraordinary animals, many found nowhere else on the planet. Blue-footed and red-footed boobies, basking marine iguanas, and lumbering giant tortoises are among its quirky cast of characters that so intrigued and inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. See them all and many more on a cruise around them and land-based adventures with Journey Latin America. Be sure to duck down into its waters on a snorkelling tour, included in all Journey Latin America’s multi-day Galápagos cruises, to spy sea lions and rays.
6: Antarctica
It’s hard to fathom that the driest, windiest, coldest and iciest place in the world is also one of its most extraordinary wildlife watching destinations. Antarctica is also the only continent on Earth with no terrestrial mammals, but the glacial and rugged snow-capped landscapes of its islands and mainland and pristine, nutrient-rich waters are also teeming with marine creatures and scores of seabirds. Join one of Journey Latin America’s expeditions from Ushuaia in Argentina’s Patagonia for plenty of pinch-me experiences in this pristine but fragile landscape from watching passing pods of fin whales and albatross following in the ship’s wake to spotting gentoo penguins huddling on shore. For an especially epic Antarctica adventure, you can join a search for emperor penguins by helicopter and on foot in the Weddell Sea.
7: Baja California, Mexico
You never get over the first time you see the splash of a whale tail or a spouting blowhole. Where the rugged desert meets the deep blue sea, the Baja Peninsula and the Sea of Cortez is one of the best and most beautiful places to go whale watching with sightings of grey whales pretty much a given here between February and March. This is when the marine mammals arrive to calve and nurse their young. Humpback, blue, fin, sperm and minke whales also frequent these cerulean waters while mobula (rays renowned for their aerial acrobatics) arrive en masse in this stretch of Mexico’s Pacific coastline between April and July. In between boat trips on Magdalena Bay to spot whales, bask on silky white sand beaches, where leatherback turtles lumber onto the sands to lay their eggs. Journey Latin America’s Self-Drive Mexico: Discover Baja California and the Sea of Cortez will open up its myriad marine wonders.
Can you keep a secret?
Love truly being out in the wild? Beyond its better known wilderness areas, Latin America is teeming with unique flora and fauna. Colombia’s Los Llanos has prairies and wetlands that wow with cute monkeys and capybaras as well as fearsome anacondas. In Central America, Panama is packed with remarkable natural areas from rainforests home to jaguars, hummingbirds and thousands of butterfly species to its untamed coast. Guyana’s wild and waterfall speckled rainforests shelter big cats and giant river otters, as does Paraguay’s section of the expansive Gran Chaco. Here forests and scrubland are alive with rare birds along with lowland tapirs, caiman, giant anteater, armadillos and the endangered Chacoan peccary. The vast savannah grasslands, dry forests and wetlands of Brazil’s little visited Cerrado hosts a dazzling diversity of wildlife (5 per cent of the planet’s animals and plants in fact), including the elusive maned wolf.
