Yurimaguas
Yurimaguas is a port town in the Loreto Region of the northeastern Peruvian Amazon. Historically associated with the Mainas missions, the culturally diverse town is affectionately known as the "Pearl of the Huallaga". Yurimaguas is located at the confluence of the majestic Huallaga and Paranapura Rivers in the steamy rainforests of northeastern Peru. It is the capital of both Alto Amazonas Province and Yurimaguas District, and had a population estimated at about 62,903 inhabitants.
With a long and illustrious history, Yurimaguas is a tourist destination, especially during the August 15 annual Catholic festival of the Assumption. Long dominated by the presence of the Church, the town is home to the Apostolic Vicariate of Yurimaguas, Loreto Region. Visited in 1855 by the famed botanist Richard Spruce, Yurimaguas remains an important commercial center for subsistence and market oriented farmers or ribereños and fishermen.
Yurimaguas is notable for being the last urban center in Loreto connected by highway with the rest of Peru: a recently paved road links Yurimaguas with Tarapoto and Moyobamba, located in the tropical Andes, or as it is known in the vernacular, the montaña. While the Moisés Benzaquen Rengifo Airport was first established in Yurimaguas in 1937, it is now barely functioning. For the majority of the populace, transit is dominated by river travel. In the ports of Yurimaguas trade is in tropical forest produce, particularly hardwoods, petroleum, contraband, and goods from the Andean highlands or Pacific Coast sent down-river to Iquitos and beyond. Yurimaguas boasts a magnificent Cathedral built by the Passionist Order, and modeled after the Cathedral in Burgos, Spain.
