Our day’s skiff and land excursions will be in the morning and late afternoon, when the wildlife is at its liveliest. 

Iquitos is a city with a population of over 400,000 inhabitants. It is the largest jungle city of Peru and the capital of the massive Department of Loreto, the largest of all Peru’s Departments. Iquitos was originally founded in the 1750s as a Jesuit mission. It grew steadily and there was a virtual population explosion in the 1880s during the rubber boom. The rubber industry has left an amazing legacy in Iquitos with its fabulous mansions, which in its heyday was the centre of cultural life for the rich of this port city. The city experienced a second boom, with the discovery of oil in the area, which has transformed Iquitos into a prosperous modern city. In recent years tourism has also begun to play an increasingly important role in the local economy.

A unique feature of the rainforest surrounding Iquitos is that it has neither a rainy nor dry season. It does have a high water period from December through May, which is caused by the melting of snow during the Andean summer and from the rainy season in the upper jungle. The low water period begins in June and ends with the rising waters in November.

The warm and humid climate remains relatively constant throughout the year, giving this area its botanical category of "Everwet Tropical Forest". Normal daytime highs are 32º C (90 ºF) and nighttime lows are 23º C (74 ºF).

The Amazon Region contains the world’s largest tropical rainforest, the world’s longest river, and perhaps the greatest diversity of wildlife to be found anywhere. More than 4000 species of birds, 2000 species of fish (more species than are found in the Atlantic Ocean), 60 species of reptiles, including the caiman and the anaconda, the world's largest non-venomous snake, and a great variety of mammals such as the jaguar, pecary, anteater, tapir, capybara and pink dolphin.

In addition to our rainforest explorations, another important feature of the program will be our visits to the homes of deep forest settlers. We will visit and learn what their lives are like, living on the edge of this vast trackless forest. A walk through their gardens is always interesting and we marvel at their survival skills, which permit them to continue living in the complex tropical forest environment. All deep forest settlers collect plants for medicines and we will talk with them about which plants they collect and their uses.