jungle travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

According to the international boom in ecological and adventure tourism, lodgings have sprung up all over the Brazilian Amazon region in the past four or five years.Travelers with a sense of the exotic and a tolerance for the unpredictable can now book a stay in the jungle. One night at the Tiwa Amazonas Ecoresort costs 595 reals, $298, at 2 reals at the dollar.

A display depicts local fauna at Tiwa Amazonas Ecoresort.

The Tiwa Amazonas Ecoresort, which opened in 2003, has 52 air-conditioned rooms on stilts over a lagoon, plus a common area with a restaurant, bar, game room and a view of the Manaus skyline.

A forest around the Amazon Riverside Hotel.

The Amazon Riverside Hotel has arranged hammocks at the dock for guests keen on doing nothing but watching the river flow.

Every lodge tries to offer something its competitors do not. The Anavilhanas Jungle Lodge offers tours of the nearby archipelago.

From left, piranha, a caiman and a monkey, all denizens of the Amazonian jungle.

A tourist from São Paulo plies a wooden canoe around the Anavilhanas archipelago.

The rain forest is like a wallpaper at the restaurant at the Anavilhanas Jungle Lodg.

By reputation the second of Mexico‘s beach resorts, Puerto Vallarta is smaller, quieter and younger than Acapulco. It lies in the middle of the 22-kilometers wide Bahia de Banderas (the Bay of Flags), the seventh largest bay in the world, fringed by endless sandy beaches and backed by the jungly slopes of the Sierra Madre. Once but a tiny fishing village, Puerto Vallarta is now a world class resort that has retained all of the quaint charms of the original village yet embodies all of the characteristics you’ve come to expect in a modern resort.

Puerto Vallarta is one of Mexico’s most popular tourist destinations – equally popular with both national and international visitors. Puerto Vallarta has been consistently voted by Conde Nast readers as one their top ten favorite international destinations for years. Puerto Vallarta really is the destination where Mexico comes to life, and there’s a little something here for everyone! Dozens of restaurants feature cuisine from around the globe. It’s a shopper’s paradise with traditional market stalls as well as designer boutiques, fine art galleries and handicrafts from every corner of Mexico. With several different environments close together, Ocean, Beach, Jungle and Mountains, there are many tours and excursions available in Vallarta. Vallarta offers championship golf, tennis tournaments, mountain biking, hot air ballooning and more for the active traveler! Where ever you are, there are tours for you on the water, the beach or land. Day trips range from a flight to a mountain silver mining village to a cruise to the island preserve of many endangered species, from booze cruises to dolphin and whale watching, canopy zip line tours, scuba diving and snorkeling, fishing, bay cruises, hiking, sailing and horseback riding.