Puerto Maldonado

The city is named for two explorers who ventured into the region 300 years apart: Spanish conquistador Juan Álvarez de Maldonado passed through in 1566; Peruvian explorer Faustino Maldonado explored the still-wild area in the 1860s, never completing his expedition, drowning in the nearby Madeira River. Rubber barons founded this youngster of Peruvian cities in 1912, and its history has been a boom-or-bust roller-coaster ride ever since. The collapse of the rubber industry in the 1930s gave way to decades of dormancy ended by the discovery of gold in the 1970s and the opening of an airport 10 years later. High prices for gold and steady improvements to the road there—part of a "highway" connecting Peru with Brazil—have brought an influx of settlers in recent years, which has been a scourge for the region's forests and indigenous peoples.

Nevertheless, Puerto Maldonado bills itself as the "Biodiversity Capital of the World," since it is the jumping-off point for visiting the Tambopata National Reserve and surrounding rain forest. Few travelers spend any time in the city, heading from the airport directly to the municipal docks, where they board boats to their respective jungle lodges. Still, Puerto Maldonado has a handful of decent hotels that can be used as a base for day trips. And this is the only place to use an ATM machine, or cash a traveler's check.