First off: Iquitos or Puerto Maldonado? OFC Iquitos, because it is the actual Amazon River. Here you basically have 2 options: link&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d630581a34d031851093ab435041a50c81b1d31 Iquitos in Peru is nasty, tasteless outside of a few central streets, and loud because of all the motocarros. You would totally want to leave once you're done with this transportation hub, visiting conservation centers, and strolling around the center a couple of times at most. Downstream 40–50 km from Iquitos we find an area I personally call a tourist trap: link&format=png&auto=webp&s=820794df6b37d6fcc30bf3f8af8032821a061d99 ⚬ Conventional mass tourism and big groups: if today they have 10 people, then tomorrow 15 more arrive and they merge them into a Saturday-evening-at-the-Chinese-mall situation ⚬ Secondary forest: it means people were harvesting here for years and are now growing trees to regenerate the once-dead forest ⚬ Tribes here are dressed up and perform for tourists ⚬ So-called rescue centers here are basically zoos, and I just don't like the idea of wild animals in captivity. They buy them from poachers—why would we support that, right, my fellow responsible tourist? ⚬ Tour guides take you into the forest, but the area is just too close to the 500,000 people of Iquitos; you can imagine how much wildlife you can find Let's go to the actual jungle for 2, 3 or 4 days: link&format=png&auto=webp&s=eaa458c658c4961bc003ec906650a07737dbe1c3 ⚬ Travel 2 hours from Iquitos to Nauta (colectivo 15 PEN; cars that can wait up to 2 hours to fill up - 28 PEN; private vans 200+ PEN), then 2 hours by boat (the further south you move on the Yarapa, the longer the journey—and a bit shorter in the wet season, but why would we go in February if we can't even walk properly in the jungle?) ⚬ The Yarapa River, a place where the "right" lodges are (even though they are pretty close to one another and you inevitably hear motorboats and the occasional sound of hammers fixing wooden structures), is a remote blackwater tributary of the Amazon River, close to where the Marañón and Ucayali Rivers merge to form the Amazon ⚬ Primary forest, high biodiversity, and an abundance of birds (they are sometimes deafening; my heart smiles hearing that people haven't affected these areas too much) ⚬ The Amazon, Marañón, and Ucayali Rivers are too wide for close-up wildlife viewing, so the Yarapa River is what you need. Boats here can't be large, especially during the high-water season, in order to navigate the dense, flooded jungle canopy ⚬ The Yarapa is acidic, with a pH similar to black coffee or vinegar. Here I'm letting AI take over: Instead of mountain sediment, these rivers flow slowly through dense forest debris. As dead leaves, bark, and seed pods rot in the water, they leach out high concentrations of tannins and humic acids. This stains the water a dark, transparent tea color and strips it of oxygen, creating an acidic environment where mosquitoes struggle to breed. While Yarapa is absolutely not sterile—meaning you still cannot drink it raw—the natural chemistry of the blackwater makes it an incredibly hostile environment for many of the microscopic threats that usually plague tropical rivers. The Yarapa is a remote, protected corridor with no major cities or heavy sewage runoff upstream. Most harmful coliform bacteria in rivers come from human or livestock waste, which is largely absent here. Now, the main part Why Ethical Travel Matters in the Peruvian Amazon, or How Not to Be a J"rk to Local Nature and People ⚬ Any promise of holding a sloth, petting monkeys, holding anacondas, or "guaranteed" animal sightings IS A BIG NO-NO, so only a hands-off, observation-only policy with natural habitats and a respectful distance ⚬ Clarify multiple times that the lodge doesn't have captive animals (they get them from poachers) ⚬ Lodges with 24/7 electricity and Wi-Fi most of the time mean running noisy diesel generators next to wildlife habitats—meh ⚬ Some tour companies were trying to lure me by promising individual single-use plastic water bottles for every excursion ⚬ If you want to be a nerd, ask for their license and official registration with DIRCETUR Loreto ⚬ Check if they are owned by gringos (like the fancy-schmancy TH): I personally prefer that my money stays in Peru Have fun in the jungle!