During our time in Iquitos, we visited Belen, which is a floating shanty town. Some call it the Venice of Peru, but um… well, I’ll let you make the comparison. However, they are similar in that you can pay people to give you a tour in a canoe.
The houses are built on the banks of the Amazon, and for half of the year 
that area is flooded. So the houses are set on top of makeshift rafts, like so, and tied to the other houses around them so that when the floods come they aren’t all washed away. The water is highest during the months of February through July, so when we were there a lot of the houses were on dry land.
It was very interesting to see how the people there use the river. All along the bank there are little outhouses, which are basically just four walls built 
out of either wood or plastic or tarp, with a hole in the floor so that whatever leaves you enters the water. This in and of itself was a little disturbing (considering we were paddling through that very river) but then you see women washing their clothes in the river, people bathing, and my personal favorite, someone brushing their teeth and using the river water to rinse out their mouth. Seemed like one step forward for personal hygiene, and then two steps back. If you look at this picture, you can see a couple of the outhouses in front, floating on the river. Still, all in all it was an interesting place to see. 
We got out of our canoe and walked around for a bit, and there were some interesting plants. There was one plant that when you touch it all of the leaves curl up and pull in. That was something I hadn’t seen before. Anyway, here is one last floating house and then we’ll move on to the rest of Iquitos.
