Cano Negro Fishing Lodge

Built around a partnership with the nearby community of Versalles that has run for seventeen years, Cano Negro Fishing Lodge has grown from a basic angling camp into a small, well-run base inside a 2-million-acre reserve in Bolivia's Beni Department. The lodge now takes up to sixteen guests, split between four air-conditioned bungalows and a set of tents with proper beds and cooling of their own. Fishing is the point. Guides work the blackwater channels for arapaima, one of the largest freshwater fish alive, alongside peacock bass, payara, and more than thirty other species drawn from over thirty species logged in these waters. Catches over a certain size are released; the rest feed guests and the local community, a practical arrangement rather than a sentimental one. Macaws move through the canopy and pink river dolphins surface along the same channels anglers fish. An international cook runs the kitchen, and the Cayman Bar pours a decent range of tropical drinks after the day's fishing. The season runs July through October, when river levels favour the sight-fishing arapaima are known for. It is a simple, working lodge, not a resort, and that is the appeal.