Ucayali is preparing for up to 230,000 people during Pope Leo XIV’s planned November 15 visit, Governor Manuel Gambini said. The Peruvian Amazon region will host a Mass and a meeting with Indigenous representatives, with accommodation already under pressure.

Gambini said hotels and restaurants were fully booked and proposed allowing visitors to camp in schools. He said infrastructure preparations were between 80% and 90% complete, with the stage nearly ready.

A Mass and an Amazonian meeting

The Pope is scheduled to reach Pucallpa on the afternoon of November 15 after visiting Cusco. He will meet missionaries and representatives of Amazonian peoples, celebrate Mass at Ucayali’s Villa Deportiva sports complex, and return to Lima.

The itinerary was outlined by Guillermo Inca Pereda, the national coordinator of the apostolic visit. The Peru visit is scheduled for November 11–16, within a wider November 6–17 South American tour that also includes Uruguay and Argentina.

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Gambini said the Mass venue could accommodate 150,000 people. A separate space at Boulevard de Yarinacocha would accommodate another 35,000, exclusively Indigenous attendees.

Indigenous communities prepare their welcome

Indigenous representatives plan to welcome the Pope at the Puerto Callao waterfront in Yarinacocha, a district in the Pucallpa area. They intend to share their customs and raise concerns about the problems facing their communities.

María Amparo Zaragoza, a member of the local Catholic vicariate’s Indigenous Pastoral Commission, said two delegates would speak for the region’s 21 Indigenous peoples. The delegation will consist of a man and a woman.

The planned welcome includes presenting the Pope with a Shipibo-Konibo bead crown. A group from Nopoki University in Atalaya will perform the masha dance and a presentation of the myth El grito del agua, while a delegation from Purús will sing.

Representatives also plan to give him a stole bearing elements associated with all 21 Indigenous peoples. Another proposal would bring 21 decorated canoes to the welcome, each representing one of the region’s peoples.

A day off that workers must make up

The government has designated November 15 a compensable non-working day for private-sector workers in Ucayali. The measure forms part of a decree covering selected dates in areas included in the papal visit.

Employers and workers must agree on whether to apply the measure and how to recover the hours not worked. If they cannot agree, the employer decides. The Ucayali provision applies only to the private sector.