City of Iquitos

Iquitos is the largest and most exciting of Peru's jungle towns. It is a city of 400,000 and the capital of the Peruvian Amazon. The city was named for the Iquito Indians who first settled the peninsula of land formed by the Amazon, Itaya, and Nanay Rivers. Jesuit missionaries founded a mission here in the mid 1700's, fending off attacks from the many local tribes (especially the fierce Yagua, renowned as marksmen with their long poison-dart blowguns) who did not want to be converted. Iquitos reached its heyday between 1880-1915 when the rubber boom was at its peak. European ships and goods were common sights, and rubber barons became fabulously rich, while local Indians and mestizos were exploited as laborers.

Iquitos can still be reached only by river or air as there are no roads connecting it to the outside. Surrounded in all directions by green forest and a maze of rivers and streams, it remains an oasis in the midst of the Amazon. The city is full of activity and interesting sights. Three-wheeled ‘motorcars’ are the main means of transportation in the town. Mansions and beautiful tiled walls still remain as testament to the glory days of the rubber boom.

The market area of Belen consists of thousands of huts built on rafts which rise and fall with the river. During most of the year, the rafts are afloat and canoes paddle from house to house selling and trading jungle produce.

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