Current Time in Pucallpa, Peru

Pucallpa is a city in the eastern lowlands of Peru and the capital of the Ucayali Region. It stands on the left bank of the Ucayali River, one of the main headwaters of the Amazon, in flat rainforest country a little over 150 metres above sea level. The name comes from Quechua and means red earth, a reference to the colour of the ground on which it is built.

With a population of around three hundred and twenty thousand, Pucallpa is one of the largest cities of the Peruvian Amazon. Its importance rests on its position as a river port and, crucially, as the only major Amazonian city in Peru connected to the rest of the country by road. Timber, oil, palm oil, fish and agricultural produce move through it, and it functions as the commercial capital of a vast and thinly populated region.

The settlement was founded in 1840 by Franciscan missionaries working among the Shipibo-Conibo people, who have lived along this stretch of the Ucayali for centuries. It remained a small river village until the twentieth century. The completion of the Federico Basadre highway from Lima across the Andes in 1945 transformed everything, opening the region to migration, logging and colonisation, and the population has grown steadily ever since. Oil exploration and later the expansion of agriculture added to that growth.

The city itself is modest in appearance, but the surroundings are the attraction. Lake Yarinacocha, an oxbow lake a few kilometres away, is lined with villages, restaurants and boat landings, and the Shipibo communities of San Francisco and Santa Clara welcome visitors interested in their geometric textiles, ceramics and beadwork, among the most distinctive indigenous art of South America. The Parque Natural de Pucallpa keeps regional wildlife, and boat trips lead into creeks and flooded forest. The work of the self-taught painter Pablo Amaringo, who founded an art school here, made the visionary art of the region internationally known.

Local culture is a blend of indigenous, Andean and mestizo influences. The riverside markets sell paiche and other enormous Amazonian fish, palm fruits, plantains and jungle herbs, and the regional cuisine is built around juane, tacacho and grilled river fish wrapped in leaves. Music from the lowlands, the cumbia amazónica that emerged in this region in the 1960s, still fills bars and buses.

Transport combines all three modes. The port sends cargo boats downriver to Iquitos on journeys lasting several days, the highway carries lorries to Lima in roughly twenty hours, and the airport offers daily flights to the capital. Motorcycle taxis dominate the streets.

Higher education includes the National University of Ucayali and several private institutions, with programmes in forestry, agronomy and environmental science that suit the region's needs.

Pucallpa is significant as the meeting point of the Andes, the road network and the Amazon river system. It is the practical gateway to the Peruvian rainforest and to the living culture of the Shipibo people.