Roaming South America

Juanjuí — A Selva Town That Just Works

March 17, 2026

Juanjuí, Perú - I've been here several times before and I like this town. It has nothing special, no historical architecture, no archeological sites, no anything. It's just a riverside town that is calm, relaxing, full of friendly people. The streets are not congested, the drivers are not laying on their horns, in fact, they use them very sparingly. The main plaza is pleasant, and the linear park is mostly finished with new ponds with fountains and lots of open grass space. I've written other blogs about Juanjuí which include the history, so I won't bother with that in this blog.
References:
Juanjuí, Perú - Feb. 8, 2023
Juanjuí, Perú - Aug. 14, 2023

Jungle Shipping, Livestock Edition

During one of my walks in town, I went to the riverside. I stood on the top of the stone-armored levee, and there on the water was a large canoe. The common "canoa" is not a typical North American canoe; it's a much larger, heftier version, usually between 8 and 14 meters (26 - 46 feet) long and up to 1 1/2 meters wide. In it was a bull. And he was quite big. There was a man on the boat with a prod, and two ropes were tied to the bull. Two men on the levee were trying to lead the bull off the boat; the one with the prod was poking it from behind. There was already one other bull standing at the edge of the water. This bull in the boat wanted nothing to do with jumping off that boat. When I'd been watching for some ten minutes, it finally jumped over the wrong side and into the river. The men on the wall were just about pulled off the wall but managed to stay standing, somehow. A few more minutes of the bull acting like a 5-year-old kid flopping on the floor, throwing a tantrum, and refusing to get up, it finally made its way to the muddy riverbank. Then it slipped on the muddy, rocky surface many times, and it was obviously very mad about this whole situation. One man grabbed the rope for the first bull and led it up a dirt/stone ramp up and over the levee, and finally tied it to a tree. But in the process, the bull charged him several times. The other bull, still down in the water, lying there refusing to stand, was having nothing to do with the whole show. At that point, I left and walked back into the town center for lunch.

My Impressions

This trip also gave me a chance to reconnect with an acquaintance here in town - she has a shop that sells charcoal for asado restaurants, corn and corn flour, and various other things. Normally, Valentine's Day is not a typical Latin American holiday. Instead, they have Dia de Amigos y Amores, or something like that, in September. Anyway, there are some that celebrate Feb. 14 Valentine's Day so she was also selling some hand-crafts that she made for this holiday.

If you visit any town in the Selva region of Perú and ask at a hotel or similar establishment if they have hot water will inadvertently say 'yes'. Don't believe them until you actually turn on the shower control and test the water - chances are there will be only one control, meaning no hot water; or there might be two controls, in which case there might be a tank on the roof that warms up when there is enough sunlight to warm up the water in the tank. But, the Hospedaje La Merced, Facebook, does have hot water from a proper hot water tank, probably heated by natural gas. And now, with four visits to this town, this is the first hotel I've found with hot water.

I like Juanjuí. It's nice to find a reasonably sized town that is not flooded with mototaxis. If you've read any of my other blogs, you would know I detest those awful machines. They're noisy and create too much air pollution. But in Juanjuí, the streets are not congested with them. And that makes all the difference in the world to me.