Amazonia Guides
One of the most important parts of your Amazon Rainforest experience will be the quality of your personal guide. Amazonia Expeditions has the highest credentialed and most professional staff in the Amazon, and regularly updates their knowledge with special training seminars. All of our guides are certified in wilderness first aid, which is an achievement that is unique to Amazonia Expeditions.
Full Time with Benefits
In addition, while other lodges in the upper Amazon basin only offer their guides 90-day contracts to avoid paying them workers benefits, a practice that leads to high turnover, Amazonia Expeditions invests in offering full-time positions to our guides and other staff. Not only offering out employees good salaries, but we also invest in retirement pensions, full family health care insurance, annual paid 30 days of vacation and long-term employment with continuing training and educational development.
Most of our guides have been with us for years, and have really gotten to know the ecosystems of the Tahuayo River basin. The morale is high as the staff of Amazonia appreciate the benefits of their employment.
First Equal Opportunity Employer
Amazonia Expeditions was the first tourism company in Iquitos to provide equal opportunity to both men and women in training and employment (we were told by other tour operators in the early 1980’s that it was a “crazy idea that would never be accepted by Peruvian men”). The high morale and dedicated work ethic that people note among our staff is a result of the owners’ commitment to have a respectful, pleasant, professional and productive working environment for the staff. We do not tolerate any ill-treatment among the staff based on gender, age, experience (in most tourism companies more experienced staff haze newcomers), position (staff who clean toilets, wash dishes and clean sheets are just as important for a pleasant tourist experience as guides and managers), strength, education, skin color (in much of Peru light skinned Peruvians enjoy privileges over dark-skinned Peruvians), sexual preference, ethnicity (in much of Peru having Amerindian facial features or surnames is a basis for discrimination), or religious preference (we have Evangelical Christians, Catholics, believers in jungle mother spirits and atheists working respectfully together). New staff members are quickly taught the company’s ethic of treating everyone with respect.
Nelly Priscilla Pinedo Alvarado
Nelly grew up in various remote jungle villages as her mother was a teacher who moved around from one remote village to another. This gave Nelly a broader understanding of native cultures of the Amazon. As a young adult Nelly graduated from SENATI Institute with a degree in English and later worked as a translator for Doctors without Borders and then as a guide in another jungle lodge. She started with Amazonia as a trainee in 2011 and was promoted to head guide in 2012. Nelly has field research experience assisting with Rose Hores’ study of uakari monkeys. When not guiding she assists Dolly in her work for Angels of the Amazon www.angelsoftheamazon.org. In her third year as head guide Nelly has never had less than a 5-star review.
Manuel Huayllahua
Manuel was born in Chino Village and studied at Los Andes Peruvian University. He has worked for several years with Amazonia and has two years field experience as a field assistant to primatologist Rose Hores as well as several summers as field assistant researching saki monkeys for primatologist Janice Chism. Manuel may be our best wildlife tracker and is skilled at wilderness camping and jungle survival training
Adrian Gomez Villacorta
Adrian comes from a small village on the Marañon River. His grandparents taught him the skills to work and hunt in the jungle. After completing high school in Iquitos he studied English at SENATI Language Centre. He started as an intern then assistant guide with Amazonia, being promoted to head guide in 2014.
Andy Bicerra
Andy graduated with a degree in Biology from the National University. He has investigated aspects of wildlife ecology for FUNDAMAZONIA (Fundación Latinoamericana para el Trópico Amazónico), the Ministry of Environment and the Wildlife Conservation Society and has conducted conservation education workshops in several native villages before coming to work for Amazonia in 2015.
Javier Anibal Alván Arévalo
Javier has worked at the Amazonia Expeditions lodges for 10 years, starting as a young teenager as an assistant in building repair, then moving up to motorboat pilot, then camping assistant and assistant guide, and after passing his guide exams with high grades was promoted to head guide in 2014.
Rafael Campos Sinti
Rafael grew up on the Tahuayo River in Esperanza Village. He learned about the jungle from his grandparents. As a young man, he studied English in Iquitos at the American Computer Institute. After graduating Rafael began working as a guide for other Iquitos jungle lodges before finally winning an apprenticeship with Amazonia Expeditions then getting promoted to full guide in 2015.