Iquitos the largest town in the Amazon region Peru
In 2004 I lived in Iquitos for just over six months. It's a vibrant amazing outpost in the Peruvian Amazon. The locals call it the capital of the Amazon and that's exactly what it's like. You can only reach Iquitos by plane from Lima, (although there has been talk for years in setting up flights from Cusco), or by boat up the Amazon from Columbia, or Brazil. Despite being isolated it seems to be able to keep going. (The photographs above are snapshops taken on a normal day in Iquitos, they are not carefully selected, instead they are a random selection to show the diversity of a day in Iquitos).
Below is a rather dry description from the Wiki on Iquitos. It doesn't convey any of the experience of Iquitos, which is both laid back and full-on, sleepy and vibrant, mundane and exotic, it's..... unforgetable. It got into my veins, I miss it a lot.
Iquitos the gateway to the Amazon
Belén market Iquitos
A boat tour of Belén is a common tourist attraction. Belén is an area of Iquitos that can be accessed by foot in the dry season but is only accessible via boat in the wet season. Many of the homes in this area are tethered to large poles and float upon the rising waters every year, and some homes float year-round. Where the waters begin there are often a few men with their boats who transport locals and tourists.
A typical native house in Belén is built so they can rise and fall with the water level. There is also an open-air market in Belén (in a part that doesn't flood). This too is a common attraction. Most notable is the medicine lane, "Pasaje Paquito", an entire block of the market lined with local plant (and animal), medicines, stocking everything from copaiba to chuchuwasai.
Iquitos was established as a Jesuit mission in the 1750s, and in 1864 it started to grow when the Loreto Region was created and Iquitos became its capital. It is currently the seat of a Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate.
Rubber Industry
Iquitos was known for its rubber industry through the rubber boom of the first decade of the 20th century, and there are still great mansions from the 1800s, including the Iron House (Spanish: Casa de Fierro), designed by Gustave Eiffel. The boom came to an end when rubber seeds were smuggled out of the country and planted elsewhere. The 1982 movie Fitzcarraldo, about the life of rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, was filmed near Iquitos.Iquitos has become important in the shipment of lumber from the Amazon Rainforest to the outside world, and it offers modern amenities for the residents and tourists in the area. Other industries include oil, rum and beer production.
Iquitos is home to numerous research projects that cover the studies of ecology in relation to ornithology and herpetology. Cornell University in particular owns a field station dubbed the Cornell University Esbaran Amazon Field Laboratory.
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