Iquitos

Iquitos needs 3 days: touring the Malecón Tarapacá and the floating Belén neighborhood, with houses on rafts that rise and fall with the river level, on one, and an overnight jungle lodge excursion on the Amazon river for the remaining two. June-October is the dry season, with better access to jungle trails. It's expensive by Peruvian standards, with jungle excursions as the main expense. It's the largest city in the world with no road connection to the rest of the country -it's only reachable by plane or by boat via the river-, an isolation that shaped its history since the late 19th-century rubber boom, when it became one of the wealthiest cities in South America.