A 10 hours “fast boat” ride took us further into the Amazon region to Nauta. One of the oldest settlements in the area and one of the few connecting cities to our final destination in the North: Iquitos.
Known as the “capital of the Peruvian Amazon”, Iquitos is the largest city that can only be reached by boat or plane. There are no highways around. In the city you mostly find motortaxis (really a lot of them!) along with a few cars.
After beeing in the jungle and in the small village of Lagunas, we had to get acclimatized to a city again! We were pretty overwhelmed when we arrived: So much traffic and so many people! Civilization here we come! 😅 But we were excited to dive into the exotic mixture the city has to offer!
In the city center you can find the European influences from earlier centuries. There is the iron house, “Casa de Fierro”, which is said to be designed by Gustave Eiffel and other old buildings from the colonial era.
Exotic and weird
Another “famous”, exotic and weird place to visit is the Belen Market. It is located in the barrio (district) of Belen. It is the largest market in Iquitos and probably the wildest in all of Peru!
We decided to get a local guide for visiting the market. Marlon, who originally comes straight “out of the jungle”, now lives in the lower part of Belen. He showed us around the market and explained everything about it in really good English.
Next to a lot of exotic fruits and vegetables, some from the Amazon region, some imported from other parts of Peru, you can find a lot of fresh fish. Yes, it smelled like it! 🐟😅
But fruits and fish aren’t the only things you can buy at that exotic market…Next to of course a lot of chicken, dead and alive (!), you can also find meat of more exotic animals. From the Amazon region there is like the kaiman and even turtles! 🐔🐊🐢 Of course we weren’t so happy about seeing that…Some small kaimans and turtles were even still alive! 😱🙈
Also overwhelming the massive quantities of mapacho, or Amazonian jungle tobacco, which is pre-rolled by hand directly at the market. It can be bought in huge boxes with different flavours! For one of our chain smoking friends it would have been paradise! 😅 Recovering from these impressions, snails and spit-roasted maggots didn’t seem that bad! 😅
Magic, mystery and medicine
Another part of the huge market is known as the Merkato del Brujo, or “Shaman’s Alley”. It is a place where all the magic, mystery, and medicine of the Amazon is on offer, for good or ill.
You can find almost any kind of leaves, baskets of barks, seeds, roots, and exotic plants known throughout the region to cure any illnesses. Many of these plants are made into alcohol extractions. Plants that can cure arthritis, nerve damage, insomnia and almost any other dysfunctions, even sexual (or so they say!), are all sold in Shaman’s Alley. We even found ayahuasca and other equally powerful (and dangerous) shamanic plants like huachuma (San Pedro Cactus) and who knows what else.
Further on we met some American friends of Marlon. They told us that they have come here every year for the last 10 years and that they work for a non-profit organization to support poor people. It was really interesting to get to know them!
Marlon then took us all down into the lower barrio. We went on a boat down the river to explore the area.
Belen is the poorer part of Iquitos, and during rainy season most of the lower part is flooded. The people around here live in simple floating houses or houses on stilts. Marlon even invited us into his house for a short visit of his family!
It was really quite an experience and a heavy impression of how high our living standard in Europe is!
