Nostalgia is not about returning to a place, but about accepting that one has already changed.
By C.R.Luismel
I lived in Iquitos between 1985 and 1993.
Only eight years. Just eight. But enough to leave a lasting mark.
My memories belong to childhood—that territory where everything feels more intense and real: my parents, uncles, and grandparents; primary and secondary school; family outings to Quistococha, Corrientillos, La Pradera, Santo Tomás; the Nanay River as a constant horizon; the city’s clubs—Tennis, Caza y Pesca—and long river walks where time seemed to dissolve into the water.
I did not live through the excesses of the mid-1990s. I left at fifteen, at the end of 1993. My Iquitos was different: more domestic, more familial, more contained. I did not know celebrities or public figures, only those who truly matter in a child’s life—family, schoolmates, neighbors, friends through sports. And, interestingly, years later, I met people in other parts of the world who had also lived there, as if Iquitos kept extending invisible threads across distance.
Every return felt like a search.
An attempt to recover something that had passed too quickly.
As if trying to live what I had not lived and others told me about.
Over time, I understood something essential: I was not looking for a place. I was looking for myself.
And I was no longer there. Because nothing stays the same. Everything has its moment.
And yet, Iquitos preserves an essence that few can truly explain.
That “something” in the air that captures you the moment you breathe, the moment you step off the plane or arrive at the port. A mix of humidity, heat, life, and chaos. The people—with that way of being unique to tropical places: direct, intense, warm, unpredictable. The food, the landscapes, the colors. Everything conspires to make leaving difficult when the time comes.
Some cities are visited.
Others stay within you.
To those who never left Iquitos.
To those who never felt the need to migrate.
To those who built their lives there and feel fulfilled.
And to those who, day by day, work to keep Iquitos alive, dignified, and modern:
My respect and admiration.
Happy anniversary, beautiful Iquitos. 🦜
