Things to Do in Leticia

Sunrise canoe to Isla de los Micos

You shove off while the river is still silver. Howler monkeys preach before you spot them. Spider monkeys land on the sandbank, paws light as leaves, expecting plantain chips from your guide. Parrots streak overhead, calls skimming the canopy like tossed pebbles.

Three-country market crawl

Step onto the floating raft-bridge into Tabatinga, Brazil. Asphalt smells of burnt sugarcane liquor. Vendors slice mango with machetes. Cross back into Santa Rosa, Peru, for tangy ceviche on Styrofoam plates while pink river dolphins surface beside the pier. By lunch you've spent three currencies and collected a fistful of exit stamps.

Night caiman spotting on Tarapoto Lakes

The guide cuts the outboard. Black water mirrors stars. You hear only your breathing - until red eyes glow like cigarette tips. Juvenile caimans come aboard for a quick photo. Their bellies feel cool and ridged, heartbeats fluttering against your palm before release.

Mocagua Indigenous painting workshop

An hour upriver, the Tikuna community smears natural dyes - achiote orange, genipa black - onto your forearm. Clay dries in the sun while elders hum, teaching spiral patterns that supposedly confuse bad spirits. By afternoon your skin carries a temporary tattoo and the sweet itch of fruit dye.

Marasha Reserve boardwalk hike

Wooden planks wobble over flooded forest; leaf-cutter ants march like green rivers below. You taste wild cacao, bitter then nutty. A toucan lands somewhere unseen, knocking hollow wood. The trail ends at a mirror-calm lagoon where you can swim with piranhas that, reassuringly, show zero interest.

Calle 8 north of the park - quiet at night except for coqui frogs

Brazillian-side Tabatinga for cheaper rooms and late churrasco

Malecón hostels with hammocks over the water

Eco-lodges upriver (no Wi-Fi, solar power cuts at 10)

Airbnb rooms in family houses near the stadium - football drums weekends

Reserva Natural Tanimboca for tree-house stays