Float through the wilds of Peru's Amazon in luxury

I am in the river town of Iquitos, north-east Peru, the gateway to the Amazon on the eastern ridges of the Andes mountains. This town, the most inland port in the world, some 5000 kilometres from the river's mouth in the Atlantic Ocean, feels dilapidated yet buzzing with life. It's a remote frontier cut off from the world, surrounded entirely by water with the only access by boat or plane.

We drive through the busy streets jammed with tuk-tuks and motor bikes, past faded mansions built by the rubber barons who made their fortunes here in the late 19th century until the industry collapsed around 1912. The story of Fitzcarraldo springs to mind, a movie by Werner Hertzog filmed on location in the early '80s about a rubber baron's obsession with building an opera house in his home town. Sixty per cent of Peru is classified jungle and we are in the heart of it, the greatest remaining wilderness on earth. Its vastness is mind boggling, a silent witness to the immense beauty.

Our group of boat arrivals is transported in a canoe to the middle of the river in the centre of town to a thatched-roofed restaurant Al Frio y Al Fuego for a lunch of catfish ceviche and local seafood. Afterwards we venture into one section of the vast Belen Market for a glimpse of town life at work, past the colourful displays of edible fruits that characterise the river wetlands. There is a cacophony of sounds and all manner of sights and smells; it's not for the faint-hearted, but it certainly is an exotic market with every type of produce imaginable.

We leave Iquitos and drive north for 90 minutes to Nauta, another river outpost at the source of the Amazon where the Mananon and Ucayali rivers meet. Here we board the Aria Amazon, one of two Aqua Expeditions boats in Peru, cruising the upper reaches of the Amazon year round since 2007. It's a floating hotel, a generously proportioned 16-berth riverboat that exemplifies low-key luxury.

The downside of our visit in the dry season is that restricted flight times to Iquitos mean we have a six-hour wait before we can board. Settling into our suite, which has floor-to-ceiling windows, the sense of isolation engulfs us as we glide down the river away from the lights of the town into the heart of darkness.

On board, the itineraries vary according to duration of trip and time of year, broken in two seasons – wet (December to May) and dry (June to November). The bird, animal and marine life changes dramatically between the seasons, so any time of year offers terrific and different sightings. During the wet season, the rivers swell to form an inland sea that becomes the largest flooded forest in the Peruvian Amazon with the cycle of life and bird migrations before the waters start to recede in the dry season.

The rivers are the highways of the Amazon forest and we share the waterways with canoes and rafts to large freight boats that bring essential supplies into these remote parts. On each of our morning and afternoon river safaris, our on-board expert naturalist guides (Luis, George, Roland and Ricardo) share their wealth of knowledge as we break into small groups and explore the rivers and black water creeks in the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve in small skiffs that skim the surface as every bend reveals more of this wildlife sanctuary. The impenetrable forest pulses with a diverse wildlife, most of it invisible, and we glimpse small village communities that coexist sustainably with the rainforest and drenching rains without electricity.