Iquitos and Around river Amazonas

Iquitos had its beginning in 1739 when Jesuit José Bahamonde established settlements at Santa Barbara de Nanay and Santa Maria de Iquitos on the Río Mazán. It was a particularly daunting task, as the missionaires, here faced the task of converting the fierce Iquito Indians, renowned as marksmen with their long poison
dart blowpipes. There are only one or two families of the Iquito tribe left, living on the upper Río Nanay, and these days the region is better known for the Yaguar, Bora and Witoto tribes, whose handicraft can be seen virtually everywhere you turn in the modern city.

Expeditions around Iquitos are the most developed in the Peruvian jungle, offering a wide and often surprising range of attractions. As usual, anything involving overnight stays is going cost a fair bit, though there are also cheap daytrips. At about six times the size of England, or equal to the size of California, it's not surprising that the Peruvian Amazon possesses a variety of ecotypes. Easier to access then many other South American jungle regions, increasing numbers of travellers are choosing to spend time here, and the tangled, sweltering and relatively accessible Amazon Basin never fails to capture the imagination of anyone who ventures beneath its dense canopy. In the lowland areas, away from the seasonally flooded riverbanks, the landscape is dominated by red, loamy soil, which can reach depths of 50m. The biggest river in the world, the Rio Amazonas originally flowed east to west, but when the Andes began rise along the Pacific edge of the continent around 100 million years ago, the waters became an inland sea. Another 40 million years of geological and climatic action later saw this "sea" break through into the Atlantic, which reserved the flow of water and gave birth to the mighty 6500 kilometre river. Starting in Peru as an insignificant glacial trickle on the Nevada Misma, northeast of the Colca Canyon in Arequipa, the waters swell as they move down through the Andes, passing Cusco before gaining the same Rio Tambo and cascading down through the cloud forest, passing through the Toto, Santiago, Apurimac, Ene and Tambo valleys until they reach the Ashaninka tribal territories in the Gran Pajonal. At this point, the Rio Tambo meets the Rio Urubamba, the major sacred river of the Incas that rushes past Machu Picchu down through rocky canyons.