Pucallpa
With a population of nearly 200,000, Pucallpa is Peru’s fastest growing jungle town, situated on the banks of the Ucayali river in the heart of the Amazon basin.
Like most third world communities, it has all the problems associated with hastily built frontier towns: bad roads, a lack of even the most basic sanitation facilities, and various other economic deprivations. Most of the population live a subsistence existence in one or two roomed wooden huts. Medical and educational facilities are severely limited.
Pucallpa is a commercial centre and the logging, rubber and oil industries provide much of its revenue and contribute much to the rapid deforestation of the area.