Choose from a weekend getaway camp at Lake Sandoval snf the four-hours-from-civilization, only-three-hours-worth-of-antivenom lodges deeper along the Madre de Dios River.

Lodges like Sandoval straddle the line between adventure and getaway, rooming dozens of tourists with a bar and TVs — but you didn’t fly all the way to Peru so you could sit around and play Bullshit with other Americans: Plunk your ass in a motorboat and speed downriver. Remember that you’re going to be crammed into a blind with these three or four people waiting for macaws to gather, so make friends early.

The first walk into the Amazon will be a shock: Under the thin tree canopy, the Amazon looks like the kind of trail you’d jog back in the US, more brown than green, not like the verdant wonderland you’d find in Costa Rica.

Let your inner eight-year-old loose for the bugs, like metallic blue morpho butterflies and bullet ants (not as poisonous as the snakes, but after 24 hours of pain, you might wish they were). Anything larger than that tends to hide itself pretty well — don’t be amazed if the only mammals you see are walking-meal capybaras, lapping at the water in the twilight as the eyes of caiman crocs glow the same red as an alarm clock — but every tour makes a point of viewing the macaw parrots, all of them as brightly colored as skittles. Make sure your camera has a good zoom for the macaws, because you won’t get much closer than a football field.

Once you’ve gotten over the fact that everything in the Amazon seems to be horribly dangerous and aggressive, give yourself a real gift: Walk the first few minutes into the rainforest without a guide. Idiotic? Hell yes, but when you’re in the Amazon and you own that moment yourself, not sharing it with anyone else — well, that’s simply priceless.