Historically the original town was founded in 1757 under the name of San Pablo de los Napeanos, but the present centre was established in 1864. The local Indian people Iquitos have been slowly reduced in number and parked around this area. By the end of the nineteenth century it was, along with Manaus in Brazil, one of the great rubber towns. From that era of grandeur a number of structures survive, but during this century Iquitos has vacillated between prosperity – as far back as 1938, the area was explored for oil – and the depths of depression. However, its strategic position on the Amazon, which makes it accessible to large ocean-going ships from the distant Atlantic, has ensured its importance. At present, still buoyed by the export of timber, petroleum, tobacco and Brazil nuts, and dabbling heavily in the trade of wild animals, tropical fish and birds, as well as an insecticide called barbasco, long used by natives as a fish poison, Iquitos is in a period of quite wealthy expansion. Interestingly its history differs following sources as I have also read here that the city was established in 1858 on presidential order in order to have an outpost controlling the different rivers of the area.
This last reason might be a good reason why the city is not accessible via roads, however I still find fascinating to see that this city with its past glory can still boast 493,000 people (more than Lyon the 3rd biggest city in France with 472,330 inhabitants in 2007). Besides I would not be surprised if its population was in fact superior to 500,000 as the other numbers seems quite round and that it would be difficult to make a census in a city with slums. On the other hand, 366,472 is another number stated for its population in 2007 which seems more reasonnable as it is from a census made by the Peruvian government.
Obviously, not a lot of flights goes there and it is quite expensive to go there, indeed it cost around 1000 €/£ to go fly there from either Paris or San Francisco with 3 stops at least after checking lastminute.com. I did not look extensively how the boat performed however but it should be an interesting trip to do.
In 2008, an Englishman went through the city during an expedition starting from the sources of the Amazon to its estuary in Brazil. This man has been walking for 721 days (22/03/2010) and left on the 02/04/2008 and he is expected to arrive in august 2010. His blog is well-made with a lot of articles concerning his adventures. It shows that unlike what I thought, it is still possible to get the feel of what an exploration is although with GPS it should be slightly easier.
This article might seem written out of the blue especially since I have no real interest in Latin America so far. However the situation of this city is what I find fascinating and it is exemplified with the few and different informations available about it and its lack of "popularity" as it is a rare feat to have such a city built mainly thanks to boats. In addition, as a bonus I also noticed that I could read Spanish and understand most of it.
-C
