Peru - The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget - page 809

IQUITOS
The largest city in the world not accessible
by road (the only motorway stretches
100km south to Nauta), IQUITOS began
life in 1739 when the Jesuits established
settlements on the Río Mazán. By the end
of the nineteenth century, it was, along
with Manaus in Brazil, one of the great
rubber towns - as depicted in Werner
Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo - but
during the last century has oscillated
between prosperity and depression. Yet its
position on the Amazon - making it
accessible to large ocean-going ships from
the distant Atlantic - and the nearby
three-way frontier with Colombia and
Brazil (see box, p.821) has ensured both
its economic and strategic importance;
there is a strong military presence.
Iquitos is a busy, cosmopolitan town of
about 500,000 and growing (people from
smaller jungle villages flock here looking
for a better life), with elegant architectural
reminders of the rubber boom years,
eccentric expats and the atmospheric
barrio of Puerto Belén , at whose market
you can buy just about anything.

9

Karajía and the Pueblo de los Muertos
Day tours are offered to see Karajía
and the Pueblo de los Muertos (“town
of the dead”), two different cliff-side
mausoleums where important figures in
Chachapoya society were once buried.
The six sarcophagi at KARAJÍA are the
more famous; standing over 2m high,
their flattened faces, deep-set eyes and
painted bodies give them distinct and
eerie personalities. Built in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, they still
manage to conjure up an ancestral
presence. he PUEBLO DE LOS MUERTOS
is similarly interesting, with more
sarcophagi and also burial houses,
again perched precariously on a ledge
with a huge drop into the valley below.
While these sites lie relatively close to
Chachapoyas (46km west and 30km
northwest of the city respectively),
getting there is complicated by the
condition of the roads (or lack of ).
By far the easiest way is with a tour
from Chachapoyas (though you'll still
have to walk a fair bit), or else take a
combi to either Luya, where it's a 2hr
30min to 3hr walk to Karajía (ask for
directions to Shipata where the path
starts), or to Lamud for the Pueblo de los
Muertos (approx. 3hr walk each way).
It's often possible to supplement one of
these destinations for the CAVERNA DE
QUIOCTA (10km northwest of Lamud;
2hr walk each way), an impressive cave
with jaw-dropping stalagmites and
stalactites, also the site of pre-Inca
archeological findings.

WHAT TO SEE AND DO
Iquitos is easily overlooked in favour of
its wild and exotic surroundings, but
don't be too quick to dismiss this jungle

WHEN TO VISIT
Unlike most of the Peruvian selva , the
climate up north is little affected by the
Andean topography, so there is no rainy
season as such; instead, the year is divided
into “high water” (Dec-May) and “low water”
(June-Nov) seasons. The upshot is that the
weather is always hot and humid, with
temperatures averaging 23-30°C and an
annual rainfall of about 2600mm. Most
visitors come between June and August,
but the high-water months can be the best
time for wildlife , because the animals are
crowded into smaller areas of dry land and
more rivers can be navigated.
The city of Iquitos is good to visit
year-round. When the water is high it's
a better time to see Puerto Belén and
the floating houses, though during
low-water season there are more nearby
beaches available.

The Northern
Jungle
Although far easier to access by air from
Lima or by boat from Brazil, you can get
here from the northern Peruvian coast via
an adventurous, increasingly popular
four-day boat journey up the Río Marañon
from Yurimaguas. This will take you close
to a national reserve the size of many
European countries, Pacaya Samiria , which
has much unexplored jungle.