Santa Lucia Nature Walk (4 hrs)

Combining a drive along Amazonian roads and a walk on a forest trail, this outing affords a comprehensive introduction to the region’s unique fauna and flora.

Board your motor coach for your journey along the Alter do Chao/Santarem road. Soon you will reach the Santarem-Cuiaba Highway, the only road connecting this area of the Amazon with other parts of Brazil. Taking in the sights from your motor coach window, climb to an elevation of 518 feet - in the Amazon, an Alpine

elevation indeed.

Its relatively high elevation is not the road’s only point of interest; it also offers a look at slash-and-burn agriculture and its effect on the land and forest.

A dirt road now takes you to Bosque Santa Lucia, or Santa Lucia Woods. Here, your knowledgeable guide will select a portion of the more than three miles of trails for your enchanting nature walk. Although a secondary forest, Bosque Santa Lucia contains more than 400 species of trees and features characteristics of the more distant and inaccessible virgin forests, including trees and plants that thrive in nutrient-poor tropical soils.

At the conclusion of your forest stroll, return to Alter do Chão.