How to Visit Isla de los Monos Independently: A Very DIY Monkey Adventure

A wild red titi monkey on Isla de los Monos

Monkey Island: Where the Chaos Is Fuzzy and the Locals Sit on Your Head

The day after the wife and I arrived in Iquitos — that humid, river-wrapped city dangling at the edge of the Amazon — we knew exactly what we wanted to do: go meet some monkeys.

A friendly dusky titi monkey considers biting me on the ear (it didn't)

Not just any monkeys. We were headed to the Isla de los Monos, or Monkey Island, which, as names go, is impressively literal. It is indeed a jungle-covered island teeming with monkeys. But before you start picturing a sideshow with leashed chimps in suspenders, let’s be clear: this place is not a zoo or a circus. It’s a full-blown monkey rescue sanctuary — home to creatures orphaned, injured, or rescued from the illegal pet trade. And the monkeys? They are not shy.

In fact, many who were kept as pets by people don't realize that is a bad thing. And, it turns out, they rather like people.

They’ll leap onto your shoulders like long-lost relatives, tug at your sleeves or even climb down the front of your shirt with zero respect for personal space, and sometimes flop into your lap like you’re the designated nap zone. It’s not a petting zoo. It’s more like crashing a primate block party, and you’re the one invited guest who brought snacks (if you visit, do NOT bring any snacks!). It’s hilarious, chaotic, wildly unsanitary, and one of the most joyful places we’ve ever been.

Also, monkeys. We like monkeys. And we like people who help monkeys. So naturally, this place was at the top of our to-do list in Iquitos.

The Great Monkey Independence Quest

Recently, I’ve started to worry that my wife and I are becoming the kind of travelers I used to mock — you know, the ones who can’t go anywhere without a private guide, a car, and possibly a sherpa team to carry their sunscreen. Basically, people who use an abundance of money to insulate themselves from the realities of wherever they are.

The instruction we followed to get to the Isla de los Monos

I did not want to become that traveler.

So when it came time to see the monkeys, we decided to reclaim our travel street cred and do it the hard way: no tour. We decided to figure out how to visit Isla de los Monos independently. No guide. Just us, a set of directions downloaded from the internet, and the steely resolve of two people who once booked a bus ride in Laos entirely with hand gestures.

We told the woman at our hotel front desk that we were going to get to Monkey Island on our own. She smiled in a way that said both “Good luck” and “Please don’t die.” Then she added, with great Peruvian tact, “That will be... an adventure.”

We took that as a compliment.

Here are the directions as we found them: head to a specific market (Mercado Productores) and find the port in the rear of the market. Find a boat going to Mazan and tell them you are headed to Isla de los Monos. When the boat drops you off, you will either have a 15-20 minute hike, or another short boat ride to get to the monkeys, depending on the side of the river you are dropped on.

Easy

How to Visit Isla de los Monos Independently: Getting There Is Half the Comedy

Step one was to head to Mercado Productores, a big, chaotic local market that smells like fish, fruit, and expat fear. Any tuk tuk driver you flag down can get you there (note: this is the easy part).

Somewhere behind the market — down a rickety set of stairs, past the stalls, through the mud, and across planks precariously laid over garbage and water — was the dock. No signs. No schedules. Just chaos. And boats. And garbage. There was a lot of garbage.

The path from the stairs behind the market to the boats

Using our highly advanced travel skill of “just start walking and hope,” we approached random boats and asked (with out earnest but limited Spanish) if they were headed to Mazan or Isla de los Monos. They were not.

Eventually, a kind stranger (travel’s most reliable resource) pointed us to the right boat. When pointing turned out to be insufficient, he walked us to our boat and accepted our grateful gracias with a smile.

Did the boat have a sign? Of course not. Was it obviously the right boat? Not even slightly. But it looked... well, it looked like a boat. So we climbed aboard.

It felt small. Very small. The seats felt like they were designed by someone who thought second graders were as big as a person should get. But we crammed in and waited. Because these boats don’t run on schedules. They run on the ancient riverine principle of “we leave when the boat is full.”

Eventually, we set off. For about thirty seconds. Then the engine sputtered and died and the world disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke.

And thus began the great stop-start saga of our river voyage: go, smoke, stall. Go, shake, stop. Repeat.

But eventually, we broke free, the engine kept up a constant sputter, and we cruised out onto the Amazon River, where the thrill of adventure washed over me like the diesel fumes pouring from the engine. I felt eight years old again — joyful, wild-eyed, bumping over waves — except with the knees and back of someone who really should have stretched first.

On the right boat? Maybe

Monkey Time

When the boat nudged up to a muddy bank, one of our fellow passengers — who, it turned out, worked at the sanctuary — waved us off and led us up a hill. There were signs, a trail, and jungle. Actual Amazon jungle. My first! The kind with birdsong and vines and trees thick with green. I was giddy. Possibly sweating more than advisable, but giddy.

At the center, the staff looked at us like we were space aliens. Apparently, it’s rare for two sweaty foreigners to show up unannounced and unaccompanied. But we had made it! And even better — we had beaten the tour groups. We were going to have the monkeys to ourselves.

After a short briefing, some safety forms (including a truly memorable clause about consenting to being bitten on the ear, or something), and a good scrub-down to remove whatever pathogens we’d collected on the way over (which, given the boat we road, was probably ALL the pathogens), we were off to see the monkeys.

Our first encounter was not a monkey, but a sloth. A young one. Hanging overhead. Eating leaves and giving exactly zero concern about our presence. We stood below him in awe. He was magnificent. We would see more sloths during our time in the Amazon, but we never got closer than we did to this little guy (although he was wild, so we do not attempt to touch him).

Then came the hard part: the cages for the adult male wooly monkeys. These guys, once grown, are too aggressive to be allowed to roam the small island freely. The sanctuary is doing what it can to rehome them, but for now, they live behind bars — a sobering reminder of the hard edge to all this joy.

The Monkey Deluge

The snuggliest monkey ever

And then it happened. We approached a young wooly monkey in a tree. My wife extended her hand. And he just immediately climbed onto her arm, laid his head down on her shoulder, and just... melted. Like a toddler who missed nap time. We were stunned.

Soon we were sitting on a bench, and two little titi monkeys — one dusky titi, one red titi — came bounding out of the trees. For the next thirty minutes, they played on us, with us, and sometimes inside our shirts (adorable in theory, slightly sweaty in execution).

The wife tries to shoot a selfie while the dusky titi (which had been on her right arm) leaps towards the red titi (which was on her left hip). Being a monkey jungle gym is really the best

A capuchin joined us for a bit. He climbed on, took in the view, and climbed off — clearly the aloof teenager of the monkey world. Another wooly monkey arrived. He was snuggly, too. But he got bullied (gently) by the titi monkeys, who treated him like a jungle gym. He tolerated it all like a long-suffering older sibling.

Eventually, they moved on, and we stood to leave. But the wooly monkey saw his moment. With the other two gone, he had us to himself. He climbed onto my shoulders, curled in, and snuggled like it was his job. And so we lingered a bit longer, because — well, who leaves a monkey snuggle?

The Long Ride Home (Engine Sold Separately)

We eventually made our way back via two more boats — one of which, naturally, broke down. But we didn’t care. We had gone. We had seen. We had snuggled.

And we had done it all on our own. No guide, no group, just a willingness to wander into the uncertain and sweat it out until the monkeys arrived.

And now, because travel is all about making connections, we count monkeys as friends.

And we have a nice sense of accomplishment . . . but the next day, our private guide would come to our hotel in the morning to pick us up and take us out for four days on our own boat in the rainforest. :-