Living in Iquitos Peru

Iquitos, Peru, is surrounded by grand rivers and lush rainforest. This charming city has been my home port for adventure cruises on the magnificent Amazon River for three years. Please allow me to share my love for this frontier town with you.

Your first impression is the warm, oxygen rich, moist air. It feels good and is easy to breathe. Your second impression is there are thousands of motorcycles and three wheel rickshaws called moto-kars whizzing around. Be careful. The biggest adventure most travelers experience in Iquitos is racing through the streets perched on the edge of their seat in a moto-kar weaving in and out of traffic.

The rules of the road are different from what you are used to, so a bad wreck seems inevitable. Be sure to keep your arms, legs, and baggage inside the steel frame. When the moto-kar arrives, make sure you get out on the sidewalk side, never the street side. Pedestrians have no right of way in Iquitos, Peru.

Iquitos has no roads connecting to other cities making it the largest, most isolated city on any continent. Cars are status symbols. I do not have one. Boats are important. I have four river boats. I walk or take a moto-kar, and I spend a lot of time in my boats.

I want to attempt to correct a mistake perpetuated by the travel industry, and the guide books, and found on the internet. Their combined wisdom is that the best time for the traveler to come to Iquitos, Peru, is during the “dry season” from June through November.

There are two seasons, but they are not dry and wet. What is called the “dry season” should actually be called the low water season when the water level can be 40 feet lower than the high water season. High water levels are from December through May.

The rise and fall of the water has little or nothing to do with rainfall on Iquitos. It is the snow melt and rainfall on the east slope of the Andes that causes our rivers to rise. In my opinion the only activities that are better in the low water season are fishing, collecting ornamental fish, and walking on the beach. Everything else is better in the high water season.

The most important historical event in Iquitos, Peru, was the rubber boom, which caused an explosion in population and prosperity from 1880 through 1912. The legacy from the rubber era can still be seen in the architecture of the city and the elegant mansions, as well as the Iron House and bandstand designed by Eiffel.

Most of the mansions are decorated with exquisitely painted ceramic tiles imported from Portugal, and with mahogany elaborately carved by the most skilled Italian artists. You could love a tour of the historical buildings of Iquitos. Be sure to visit the Museo Amazonico, constructed in 1863 to admire the many sculptures by Felipe Lettersten, as well as the old photographs from the turn of the 19th century.

Shopping is not good in Iquitos unless you want to buy tropical fruits, natural medicines, or other jungle extracts, in which case it is great. I wish every traveler would take a special tour with a knowledgeable guide to the Belen market in the morning for an unusual shopping experience. In the alleyway known as Pasaje Paquito there is a natural medicine to cure every imaginable illness, and in the lower Belen Market you can buy anything that can be sold.

The Plaza de Armas has a wonderful fountain. We like to buy ice cream cones from across the street and eat them in the cool mist from the fountain. It can be very romantic.

Another good place to hang out is the Malecon, also called the boulevard, or river walk, with the best view of the sunrise over the Itaya River. Perhaps we will meet. I live on the third floor of the corner building across the street from the historic chapel and seminary. My office is on the ground floor. Look for the sign that says Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises. Stop in and say hi.

On Saturday and Sunday night the boulevard is the place to be, where people gather to see and be seen. You would love to visit with some of the “characters” from the ex-pat community, drink a cold Iquiteña Extra beer (locally brewed), and watch the action. Clowns on stilts, mimes, slapstick comedians, capoeira, a brass band, street musicians, a dog and monkey show, and beautiful women all compete for your attention. My favorite is the group of capoeiristas that performs the capoeira, an acrobatic martial arts dance, every Saturday at 8 p.m. I have the best seat in the house from my balcony.

You would love going with me in one of the boats for a few hours. The port area is one of the most interesting parts of the city and most travelers never see it. I like to cruise slowly close to shore and watch the tugs and barges, the colectivos, llevo-llevos, lanchas, lanchitas, canoes, and rafts, all so full of people, livestock, fruit, charcoal, and other jungle products they look like they would surely sink. Coming and going, loading and unloading…not many places in the world have more interesting maritime traffic than the Iquitos ports.

The best way to experience the most picturesque area in Iquitos, the Barrio de Belen, is from a boat during the high water season. The houses are built on balsa rafts and float up and down as the water level changes. The floating houses are laid out in streets of water.

This area is known as the Venice of Peru. Everyone has a canoe or llevo-llevo with a peque-peque motor. We like to cruise through slow and easy watching life being lived in a different way. One of my boats was built here so I know the neighborhood very well. This is one of the most interesting places I have ever been and I think you would love it to.

A short boat ride away from Iquitos are some of my favorite places, the Amazon Animal Orphanage and Pilpintuasi Butterfly Farm, the Momon River, a small winding stream with the jungle close on both sides, a petting zoo where you can wrestle a giant anaconda, the Bora and Yagua indigenous villages, and a good place to watch the pink river dolphins. I think you would love to spend part of a day cruising around the rivers of Iquitos with me.

The best of Iquitos Peru are the people!

The most important components of Iquitos, Peru, are the friendly non-violent people. The streets are the safest of any city I have known, and are swept by hand every night so they are usually clean. Violent crime is nearly unheard of, but of course there are plenty of hustlers so please use common sense like always.

The population census shows far more women than men. You have probably never see so many people smiling and laughing, ready to dance, drink, play, and flirt for fun. Every holiday is thoroughly celebrated and there are a lot of parades and parties. Plus we are blessed with eternal summer.

Iquitos, Peru, is known as The City of Love. If you are not in love when you arrive, there is a good chance you will be when you leave…

Dawn on the Amazon

“Es él muerto?”

I jump out of my seat and gape at a Peruano man standing in his
canoe in the rain. I brush mosquitoes from my face. I thought mine
was the only boat around for miles, but here’s this man in a canoe
pointing to the front of my boat.

“Es él muerto?” he says again.

He looks worried. He’s standing in the rain in his canoe, pointing. It’s
not just any kind of rain, either. It’s rainforest rain. It’s coming down
harder and faster than you’ve ever seen rain. It’s thick. It has sound.
It’s coming down so hard, it hits the surface with such a splash, it’s
like it’s raining up. I look to the front of my boat, to Mark laying on
the fishing platform in his rain gear. Rain bouncing up off of him.

Where I am, in the relative dryness under the thatched roof by the
wheel, are a million mosquitoes, buzzing about their good fortune of
shelter and food. I’m doing my best to put mind over matter, to kind
of hum at a frequency sympathetic to theirs and confuse them enough
to stop the frenzy. I’ve always tried to make a point of ignoring them
and going about my business. It is not working.

There didn’t have to be mosquitoes. Really. It depends on the
water. Black, tannic acid, no mosquitoes. Clear sweet water, Deet
won’t do it. When we were back in Iquitos planning the trip, we knew
this, but we wanted to come here. We packed the boat, threw the
chickens on the roof, and took off. We meandered around
adventurously and wound up here, with a guy standing in the rain in
his canoe pointing to Mark, laying on the fishing platform in his
rain gear to escape the mosquito fest under the thatching.

“Hey, Mark,” I call. “What’s muerto mean?”

Mark sits up on the platform. “I don’t know. Dead, I think,” he says.
“Why?”

I look back out at the rain falling in an unbroken curtain, like looking
out from behind a waterfall, no sign of the Peruano man or the canoe.
“No reason,” I say. I brush at the mosquitoes.

Dawn on the Amazon

This series of posts should help answer some of the questions I get asked all the time. What is the exchange rate? How much for a gallon of gas in Iquitos Peru? How much does it cost to outfit a ... [Continue reading this entry]

This is an account of my interaction with a character I worked with years ago. I hope to develop more stories about Jose and some of what he taught me as I explored the upper Nanay River over 300 kilometers ... [Continue reading this entry]