Description of the attraction
The city of Iquitos, the capital of the Loreto region, founded by Spanish colonists in 1757 under the name of San Pablo de Napalenos, was the first port on the Amazon River. Modern Iquitos consists of four districts - the city center of Iquitos, Punchana, San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist) and Belém (Bethlehem).
Belém, also known as the Amazonian Venice, is one of the city's most populous areas and most visited by tourists. Buildings in Upper Belene are quite common, while Lower Belene mostly consists of houses on stilts or houses on rafts on the banks of the Itaya River. This method of building houses was forced due to seasonal changes in the water level in the river. People settled here because of the proximity of the river port, which was beneficial for successful trade. The area is located at the old mouth of the Itaya River, and houses began to be built on rafts. The upper part of the area is traditional, while the Lower Belen is completely floating. During the rainy season due to floods, access to the Belem area is only possible by canoe.
Two types of houseboats can be seen in this area: moored houses, which are attached with ropes to piles driven into the bottom, and fully floating houses, which are found on mobile rafts. In both cases, due to its proximity to the Amazon, due to its ebb and flow, shifts and falls of these wobbly structures are not uncommon. The houses are connected with each other by wooden bridges, but they are also floating.
Despite the uniqueness of floating houses, trade in the Belém market and developed tourism, today this area is one of the poorest in the city.
