Last Updated on March 15, 2023 by PowersToTravel
The motorboat for the Treehouse Lodge met us at the confluence of the Marañon and Yucayali Rivers where the Amazon River itself began. W.C., Elaine, Raymond, Mae, Greg and I left our lovely Cattleya boat to jump into the motorboat. 
Shaped like a covered bullet it was not as fresh and breezy as the Cattleya launch. However, I’m sure we would have appreciated the roof above our head during the rainy season. We traveled about a half hour up the Yucayali River to the dock for the Lodge. The relatively large number of resorts we viewed along the water’s edge as we headed upstream disappointed me.
The Treehouse Lodge is a scattering of perhaps ten or twelve circular houses built in the trees. On the surface it sounds very exciting and we were excited. I had previously spent some time on their website choosing our house. How high up should it be? How many bridges do we want to cross to get to the dining center? Would the house be frequented by wildlife? Due to long lead time, we had the pick of the forest, and I chose number three – a house fairly far from the dining center, but in the path of the squirrel monkey daily run to the river. The house was high up, but not too high. 
We walked along a boardwalk from the river to the dining center. It was circular shaped, with a round bar on the bottom floor, surrounded by the dining tables. A staircase led to a circular balcony, which led to the bridges. It was exactly as described by the website. The entire dining center was encased by screen. The bridges were out in plein-air, which at times meant you moved rather rapidly, especially at night with all the bugs about, to get to the next tree. The houses themselves were encased in screen as well.
Porters took our suitcases, which happily meant that Greg didn’t have to carry them. Our four-wheelers wouldn’t have worked on the swinging bridges, for sure. Our house was just as advertised. Naturally there was a huge trunk through the center of the round room. The bathroom occupied about one-quarter of the floor, the bed was squeezed into the opposite half, with a day-sofa as the remainder. The bed was a queen, with a mosquito-net suspended above. Below the living level of our “house” was the “public” area where through-walkers on the bridge could stop for a breather. There was a wooden chair as a rest-area.
To return to the dining center we crossed one bridge to the next house. Stopping for the moment in the public space, we launched ourselves on the bridge to the next house. My notes say that we had to cross three bridges to reach the dining center. The bridges were fun; I was not disappointed by our choice.
Our guide met us at the dining table, with our welcome drink. He would be assigned to us for our entire visit, and wanted to know what we wanted to do.
What we wanted to do? How could we answer that? We only knew what we had done so far with the Cattleya, and weren’t excited about repeating more caymans and bugs at dusk. He took us out on a trip in a flat bottom motorized boat up the river, looking for birds, sloths and monkeys. We did see birds, but they were high in the tops of the so very high trees. Since neither Greg nor I took any pictures it is highly unlikely we saw any wildlife of note.
At dusk we were back to the dining center for our dinner. It was then we realized we were no longer on the Cattleya. Dinner was hearts of palm for an appetizer, beef and rice for dinner, and a cannoli for dessert. It was adequate but paled in comparison with the lovely flavors we had experienced on the Cattleya.
We made our way back across all the bridges in the dark, trying not to use our flashlights to attract the bugs. We were so happy to get settled in our wonderful tree house. We could already tell we weren’t in an air-conditioned cabin, but there was an overhead fan and we were somewhat comfortable. Unfortunately we first found that if we dropped the mosquito net around the bed, the fan couldn’t penetrate the mesh; we just had to push back the netting, hoping for the best, hoping the netting which encased the entire house was adequate.
Then the bomb dropped – at ten pm the electricity stopped for the whole camp. We had read that there would be fan all night long, and that the nights were cool. Fan? Cool? The air was so oppressive; I lay on the bed, afraid to move, to turn, because each motion would cause a wave of sweat to overwhelm me. Every bead of sweat felt like a bullet ant wandering over my body.
I don’t know how the locals manage to sleep in the jungle; the humidity combined with the complete stillness was overwhelming. This was no luxury. I just couldn’t believe that we had been so duped. I lay there all night, not sleeping a wink.
Finally morning dawned, and with it a shower in our treehouse bathroom, thankfully. As difficult as it was, I was able to inspect myself in the mirror – I had not suffered from bug-bites. Any person reading this can feel confident that the houses at Treehouse Lodge are very well screened.
Suddenly there was a rustling noise around the house, and a troop of squirrel monkeys swarmed the trees on their way to the river for breakfast. What a wonderful sight! We both tried to take pictures of these rapidly moving creatures, and I don’t know that a single picture came out, because the auto-focus kept focusing on the mesh, and the animals were there one moment and then onto a different branch the next. The extraordinary show lasted for at least ten minutes.
Finally we had to descend to the dining center. We tried to speak to someone about the lack of electricity and no one understood English. Finally our guide arrived and was forced to translate for us. We learned that there was no manager on site, that the lodge had been sold and bought, and that day the new manager was arriving. That certainly accounted for the lack of organization.
Our guide was not an employee of the lodge; he was a local contracting guide who knew nothing about the facilities or rules. They told us that they always turned the electricity off at night. I said that was not what was advertised. I said that if they did not have electricity at night I wanted to return to the Cattleya, knowing she was still in the area, and that no-one had joined the cruise in Nauta to take our cabin. I said that they would have to take us to the Cattleya, or to a hotel in Nauta but that there was no way I was going to spend one more night without a fan in the jungle.
I’m sure they felt I was a spoiled tourist, but I had never experienced such an oppressive heat in my life, and at such a price. Finally they agreed to run the electricity all night. I agreed happily, knowing that to return to the Cattleya would have been an even bigger hit to our finances.
Check out this article of mine too:
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