• Climate: The season of rains begins in the month of December and lasts until the month of March. The temperature annual average of 28° (maximum of 36° and minim of 17° C).
• Season of visit: The best months to go are of April to October.
• Access: Daily flights from Lima that last one hour and 45 minutes exist approx
Also there is east service from the cities of Tarapoto and Caballococha. Another form to accede to this department is waterway. Dividing from the Port the Hoyada in Pucallpa (2.5 km of the city) the Ucayali river is arrived at Iquitos sailing, with scales in the Ports of Requena and Contamana.
The duration depends on the type of boat. If small but fast boat, the hard trip between two and three days following the current of the river is realized in speedboat (. If one goes away in the Boat, a great boat of great slow capacity but, the trip can last between 4 and 7 days also depending of the current on the river.
• Activities: eco-tourism, strolls by the river, observation of flora and fauna, anthropology…
• Recommendations: it is necessary to be preparation for difficult and changing conditions (heat, rain, insects…). The vaccine against the yellow, although nonobligatory fever is recommendable.
• Celebrations: in June the Celebration of San Juan, that has a symbolic character in all the Amazonia when being associated to the water like vital element.
• Gastronomy: salad of palm heart, “tacacho with cured meat” (fried banana or roast, crushed with butter and dry meat), “Inchicapi” (soup of hen with coriander, peanut and yucca), “Patarashca” (fished surrounded in leaves of banana and roast), “Juane” (mass of rice with hen pieces).
• Crafts: ceramics, fabrics guinea fowl and other objects made with natural resources of the region.
Iquitos, capital of the department of Loreto, is the first fluvial port on the Amazon river. Founded on 1757, it was as of 1880 when it initiated really his progress due to the operation of the rubber. Sample of the economic bonanza that this one produced is the buildings that still today can be seen in the city, like the old Palace Hotel, constructed in style Art Noveau with materials brought from Europe and the House of Iron, that outside designed by the same engineer who constructed the Eiffel tower of Paris.
These contrast with the rustic houses that conform the district of Bethlehem, whose bases rest on piles to preserve them of the flood of the river at time of rain.
To take a walk by the great rivers and Lagos of Iquitos is bewitching. The native groups live mainly in the margins of the rivers Amazon, Napo, Ucayali, Marañón and Nanay.
The visited beaches more are Tunchi Beach, in the lagoon Quistococha, and the beaches Santa Clara and Santo Tomás in the Nanay river, where nautical sports practice. To 150 km of the city is the National Reserve of Pacaya-Samiria. It is the more extensive National Reserve of the country, second of the Amazonian Hole and fourth in South America; it locks up a surprising biodiversity of fauna and flora.