🇧🇴 Bolivia · Lowlands, the East and the Amazon
Amboró National Park is one of the most biodiverse protected areas in Bolivia, in the department of Santa Cruz, at the point where three great ecoregions meet: the Andes, the Chaco and the Amazon. That convergence, known as the 'Elbow of the Andes', produces an extraordinary wealth of plant and animal life, with more than 800 recorded bird species —more than in all of North America— plus mammals, amphibians and plants, many of them rare or endemic.
The park has two main entrances, and they're very different. From the north, out of the Buena Vista area, you enter the lower section, of lush tropical rainforest; from the south, out of Samaipata, you reach the highland area of cloud forest, with its famous giant ferns and waterfalls. That range of environments makes it an unmissable destination for anyone who loves nature, birds and hiking.
This guide gathers the essentials of Amboró National Park: its two zones and entrances, the outdoor activities, how to get there from Santa Cruz, Buena Vista or Samaipata, tour prices and practical tips for visiting one of the country's great biodiversity sanctuaries.
Amboró National Park was created in the 1980s (and later modified in its area and zoning, with the creation of an Integrated Management Natural Area around it) to protect the exceptional biodiversity of the 'Elbow of the Andes', where three ecoregions converge. It is home to emblematic species such as the jaguar, the spectacled bear (in the highland area), monkeys, guans, toucans and hundreds of birds, and to farming communities around its edges. Its history has been marked by the tension between conservation and the pressure of agriculture and settlement. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The great department of the tropical east: Bolivia's economic engine, land of the cambas, home of the celebrated Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos and their baroque music, with the sacred rock of Samaipata, the forests of Amboró and Noel Kempff and the Bolivian Pantanal.
Read the history of Santa Cruz →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Nowhere else on the planet do four ecosystems as different as these overlap the way they do in this corner of Santa Cruz: the humid rainforest of the Amazon, the woodlands and grasslands of the Andes, the dry scrub of the Chaco and the savannas of the Cerrado all meet within barely 636,000 hectares. The result is not just another geographical curiosity: it's more than 800 confirmed bird species —some sources put the figure above 900—, close to 3,000 species of higher plants, 140 species of mammals and 135 of reptiles, numbers that place Amboró among the most biodiversity-dense territories in the world, comparable with nothing in North America or the whole of Europe.
The park's name also carries a story passed down through generations among the Chané communities of the eastern plains. According to the legend, a chief named Grigotá —today the name of an avenue in Santa Cruz de la Sierra— governed these lands wisely and, before dying, divided the territory between his two sons: Amboró and Parabanó. Each inherited a portion of forest and mountain, and their names were stamped forever on the geography of the region. Legend or not, the origin of the place name links the park to the indigenous peoples who lived on this land long before any conservation category existed.
That double identity —a world-class biological sanctuary and a territory with deep cultural roots— is what explains why Amboró isn't just a destination for trekking and birdwatching, but a place whose history is worth knowing before you lace up your hiking boots.
Legal protection for this territory did not arrive all at once, but in four successive stages that reflect a growing awareness of its value. It all started on December 20, 1973, when the Bolivian government declared 180,000 hectares of the Amboró massif the 'Tcnl. Germán Busch Nature Reserve', through Supreme Decree No. 11254. Eleven years later, on August 16, 1984, under the presidency of Hernán Siles Zuazo, that reserve was converted into Amboró National Park by Supreme Decree No. 20423, raising its level of protection.
The most significant leap came on October 11, 1991, when Supreme Decree No. 22939 expanded the protected area to 637,600 hectares, almost quadrupling the original area in the face of scientific evidence that the biodiversity extended far beyond the initial boundaries. But that expansion immediately collided with a social reality: inside the new boundaries lived farming communities and settlers who had occupied land for years, and the expansion generated strong tensions between conservation and land-use rights.
The solution came on October 3, 1995, with Supreme Decree No. 24137, which split the protected area into two management categories: a strictly protected National Park at the core, and an Integrated Management Natural Area (ANMI) in the surrounding belt, where farming and grazing compatible with conservation are allowed. This formula, which today amounts to some 636,000 hectares in total, became a reference model for resolving the conflict between protected areas and local communities across Bolivia, and it still governs SERNAP's management today.
Today, Amboró National Park is one of the most highly regarded nature destinations in Bolivia and a benchmark for ecotourism in the department of Santa Cruz. Its two main entrances —through Buena Vista, towards the lowland tropical rainforest, and through Samaipata, towards the highland cloud forest— allow for very different experiences, from birdwatching in the rainforest to walks among giant ferns and waterfalls.
The park has established itself above all as a first-rate destination for birdwatchers, who come drawn by its enormous ornithological diversity. It also offers hiking, wildlife watching, swims in rivers and immersive experiences deep in nature, generally alongside local guides who know the terrain and the wildlife. Eco-lodges and tourist services have grown up around it in the neighboring towns.
Beyond its appeal to visitors, Amboró plays a fundamental role as a biodiversity reservoir, a regulator of water and a refuge for threatened species. Conserving it, in balance with the communities around it, remains a challenge and, at the same time, one of Bolivia's most valuable contributions to protecting the planet's natural heritage.
What makes Amboró exceptional on a global scale is its biodiversity. Because it sits at the confluence of the Andes, the Chaco and the Amazon, the park brings together species of very different ecological origins in a single territory. Its most quoted record is the ornithological one: more than 800 bird species have been recorded, a figure higher than that of all of North America, which places it among the most bird-diverse spots on the planet and has turned it into a pilgrimage destination for birdwatchers from around the world.
But the birds are only part of it. Amboró is home to emblematic mammals such as the jaguar, the puma, the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus, the only bear in South America, found in the highland cloud forest), tapirs, peccaries, monkeys and viscachas, as well as a very rich herpetofauna of amphibians and reptiles and a diversity of insects and butterflies that is hard to quantify. Its plant life stands out for the giant tree ferns, true living fossils, and an enormous variety of orchids, bromeliads and trees.
This richness is no accident: it comes from the range of ecological belts the park covers, from the warm, humid rainforests of the lowlands to the cool cloud forests of the Andean slopes. Each altitude band contributes its own species, and many of them are endemic or threatened elsewhere. That's why Amboró is considered not just a tourist attraction but a genetic and ecological reservoir of incalculable value for Bolivia and for the world.