Nauta

Nauta is a town in the Loreto Province of the Peruvian Amazon, on the north bank of the Marañn River a few miles from its confluence with the Ucayali, roughly 100 kilometres south of Iquitos. According to the article it was founded by Manuel Pacaya, a leader of the Cocama people who left the mission town of Lagunas after an uprising in 1830, and the name comes from a large abandoned jar the settlers found, called mauta in their language, which became Nauta, meaning sailor or navigator. A document dated 17 December 1829 authorised the new settlement. Nauta soon became the main commercial hub of the lowland Amazon, a Brazilian-owned paddle steamer reached it in 1853, and work on its main church began in 1832. Today it is the end of the only major road out of Iquitos and a staging area for ecotourism lodges and for boats to the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve.