Planning for Iquitos - initial thoughts and later evaluation

I'll confess that my initial thoughts were: avoid all guided tours. It doesn't matter what they say, I can find my way around the tourist spots pretty easily. (Hey, I speak Spanish! I can manage!)

So I jumped into Iquitos without much planning, got a map and started to walk around.

Fortunately for me, I bumped into a guide even when I wasn't looking for one, thinking to test waters, I told him about the itinerary I had in mind and he quoted a surprisingly reasonable price.

After trekking the jungle with him, I'm really glad I changed my mind as it would have been difficult if not downright impossible/dangerous to do certain things had I been alone - like walking into the bowels of a nature reserve, and rowing along a distributary river on a canoe borrowed free-of-charge from families living on the bank.





A good guide can also serve to point out things that you would have missed and which are not labelled on maps. He showed me various plants and their uses (face paint and fruits you can eat off the tree), a small "supermarket" and places to taste good (and sanitary) local food and drinks.

So even though I still very much like the idea of going it solo, which is still possible, I acknowledge that without my guide Rosendo I would have missed out on quite a lot of stuff.






My advice is: go for a guide. Take some time to shop around and ask for good prices if you want, but in the end Iquitos, the jungles and the rivers are best explored with an expert.