The Amazon animals and wildlife you experience while traveling with us both on board our cruiseships and on skiff excursions couldn’t be more diverse and fascinating. Scarlet Macaw, Ringed Kingfisher, Orange-backed Troupial, Yellow-headed Caracara, the Peru bird list goes on and that’s just for the birds. Access to the flying wildlife, reptiles, exotic insects, unusual plants and elusive mammals of the Amazon rainforest is what makes the Aqua Expeditions cruising experience onboard  the Aria Amazon entirely unique.

The small size of our river cruise, only  16 cabins  and its advanced design technology allows us to travel quietly by water deep into the Amazon jungle. Aqua Expeditions naturalists who grew up here lead our guests to the most pristine environments visited only by the Amazon’s inhabitants and us, spotting channel-billed toucans, giant gladiator tree frogs and even the actually uncommon common anacondas along the way.

Our cruise ship route takes us to Pacaya Samiria Reserve where we enter a natural, timeless world of undulating strangler vines wrapped around ancient ficus trees and brilliant bromeliads that pop brightly against the verdant jungle spectrum while unseen parrots call out from the dense tree canopy, squirrel monkeys play all day, yellow spotted Amazon River turtles appear like statues on the riverbanks and neon-brilliant colored tanager, kingfisher and oriole birds soar across the clear cerulean sky.

Aboard our luxury cruise ship as well as on short excursions, guests get up close to hundreds of species of Amazon wildlife, including the endangered pink Amazon dolphin, endearing three toed sloth—and for a very lucky few—the Amazon’s sleek, black jaguar.