Where to go for wildlife in Latin America

Latin America is not one wildlife destination, it is four or five quite different ones, and they are not interchangeable.

A rainforest trip and an island trip give you completely different animals, seen in completely different ways. Below is what each of our routes actually offers, written without the adjectives — because the honest version is more useful when you are choosing.

In short

• Costa Rica, 18 days — the densest wildlife of anything we run, on foot in rainforest and cloud forest
• Galápagos, within our 15-day Ecuador trip — animals that do not move away from you; seven full days
• Peru, 16 days — condors at the Colca Canyon and sea lions and seabirds at the Ballestas Islands
• Mexico, 15 days — the weakest of the four for wildlife, and the strongest for everything else
• All land-only, all on guaranteed departures

If you are choosing purely on animals, this is the trip.

San Gerardo de Dota is where you go looking for the resplendent quetzal, with a guide who knows the trees it feeds in. It is not guaranteed — nothing wild is — but this is one of the better places on earth to try.

Corcovado is the richest stop: howler monkeys, toucans, scarlet macaws, sloths and crocodiles are all realistic, and tapirs are the lucky sighting. The trees here reach 60 metres.

Monteverde puts you up among the canopy, level with the birds, with a chance of spider monkeys and, again, quetzals.

Cahuita adds a different set entirely — mangrove and rainforest walked alongside sloths, raccoons, lizards and crabs, with howler monkeys overhead.

Eighteen days, no internal flights, a maximum of 12 travellers, and low altitude throughout.

Different in kind rather than degree. Everywhere else you are trying not to disturb animals; here they simply carry on.

Our Ecuador route gives the islands seven full days, land-based — you stay on the islands rather than in a cabin. Giant tortoises, marine life snorkelled in clear water, volcanic islets, lava tunnels and wild beaches, finishing with a marine voyage on the last full day.

The caveat worth stating: a fair amount of the best viewing is in the water. The snorkelling is optional and there is always a land alternative, but if you would rather not get in the sea, you are choosing a trip whose best moments you will partly watch from the boat.

The first five days are Andean and high — Quito, Quilotoa, Cotopaxi, Otavalo — before the islands, which are at sea level.

Peru is a history trip that happens to contain two genuinely good wildlife days. At the Colca Canyon you watch Andean condors ride the morning thermals out of one of the deepest canyons on earth — a bird with a three-metre wingspan, seen from above rather than below. Later, the Ballestas Islands and the Paracas reserve bring sea lions, seabirds and a coastline that looks nothing like the rest of the country.

Mexico is the one to be straight about: our fifteen-day route is built around three ancient civilisations, colonial cities and food. There is jungle around Palenque and water at the cenotes, but if you are going for animals, the other three trips on this page are better answers.

If you are weighing Latin America against Africa for a wildlife holiday, Africa or Latin America for wildlife sets the two side by side.

Worth knowing before you choose, because it differs more than the destinations do.

On foot, with a guide. Costa Rica, almost entirely. You walk rainforest and cloud-forest trails, and how much you see depends heavily on the guide spotting it — which is the argument for a small group rather than a coach.

By boat. The Galápagos day-trips, the Ballestas Islands, and the mangrove river safari in Costa Rica.

From a viewpoint. The Colca Canyon condors.

A maximum of 12 travellers on Costa Rica, Mexico and Ecuador, and 15 on Peru. On a wildlife trip that number is not a comfort feature — it is the difference between a group that can stand still and listen and one that cannot.

Every trip here is land-only, so you book your own flights, and runs on guaranteed departures, with £25 per traveller going to our vSocial local projects.