For an informative overview of all our Brazil birding tours, see Brazil: Field Guides Tours.

"On February 27, 1914, shortly after midday, we started down the River of Doubt into the unknown. We were quite uncertain whether after a week we should find ourselves in the Gy-Parana, or after six weeks in the Madeira, or after three months we knew not where." So wrote Theodore Roosevelt in his Through the Brazilian Wilderness, a remarkable diary of his experiences and survival traversing an uncharted sector of the vast Amazon basin. Nearly 100 years later, the Rio Roosevelt, as it is now called, remains one of the most pristine rivers in Amazonia, coursing through hundreds of kilometers of undisturbed forest. The river is as inaccessible as it was in Roosevelt's day--except for one point on the map in far southern Amazonas state: the beautiful new Pousada Rio Roosevelt. We love the place, so we've decided to take you birding there! The pousada is a small, exclusive lodge, featuring 10 cabanas with a/c and private bathrooms with hot water, and a great bar and kitchen. In short, it's a truly luxurious headquarters for a week of exciting birding--Teddy would have sooo loved it!

The Roosevelt fringes the far upper Madeira-Tapajos interfluvium, a poorly known region replete with endemic species (and even more subspecies) of birds, the most-range-restricted of which include Hoffmann's Woodcreeper, Rondonia Bushbird (still not 100% confirmed to occur around the pousada), White-breasted and Pale-faced antbirds, Black-bellied Gnateater (what a BIRD!), and Buff-cheeked Tody-Tyrant. We'll also seek good views of at least seven species of birds as yet undescribed to science, one of which Bret discovered on the 2009 tour (and it performed beautifully again on our two subsequent trips)!

To get yourself primed for this journey, read Candice Millard's The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey (and Teddy's first-hand account, cited above, if you're really into it), then join Bret and a small group for a birding adventure on the Rio Roosevelt that's sure to be fun: no doubt about that!

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