Iquitos: Belén market

On the west side of Iquitos is the slum of Belén which is notable in large part because a large part of it is built on stilts in order to deal with the periodi rises in the river level, and another significant part is actually floats on the Itaya river.  

Belén's market abutt's Iquito's central districts and is an easily accessible venue in which visitors can see a traditional market in operation and see jungle produce and forest products, including natural and traditional medicines, on display and available for purchase.

 On our last morning in Iquitos we walked the few blocks from our hotel to the market, as I was curious to see the floating part of it and Jacho was keen to show me immense variety the traditional medicines sold by the market's hierberos - herb sellers.

Medicinal barks and roots.

Traditional medicinal elixirs.

The variety of medicines and the breadth of ailments that they were intended to cure and the situations they were meant to help or ward off were indeed quite amazing -everything from coughs to infidelity, kidney stones to the evil eye.

Black boa head, said to protect the home and ensure business success.

Unfortunately, there were also a couple of illegal jaguar pelts on sale as well.

Unlike other markets I've been to, Belén's did not show any evidence of internal regulation.  In most cases market stall operators will work to ensure some order and as much cleanliness as they can manage around their stalls.  Not so in Belén, as far as we could tell.

There were stinking puddles of black, garbage-ladden, muck everywhere, and people were serving and eating food literally elbow-to-elbow with dismembered chicken carcasses.

Belén's was the sketchiest, most insalubrious market I've ever experienced.

The rest of the area was not much better, as we found out when we strolled down the steps and into Belén's slum area proper.

We quickly deduced that we had made a serious error in walking down there, removed our watches and pocketed them, and as soon as we got to an intersection with a vehicular thoroughfare, we caught a pair of mototaxis and got out of there.

Quistococha

On our last full day in Iquitos we ventured out to Quistococha lake.

Quistococha and its surrounding area are a designated protected natural area.   It's visitors' area includes a small zoo with animals from the region.

Lakeside, the visitors area also includes an artificial beach where where, after visiting the zoo, we were able enjoyably pass the afternoon lunching, lounging, and even traveling the lake in a rented boat.

Iquitos street food

The weekend we were in Iquitos -the last weekend in June- was a 3-day weekend honor of the feasts of St. Peter and St. John.  St. Peter being the patron of fishermen, there was a parade in the port district of Nanay and its streets were crowded with makeshift kitchens and eateries selling the local fare -mostly grilled chicken and fish, regional specialties such as tacacho (roasted green plantains, pounded to mush and formed into a ball), cecina (salted and smoked pork or peccary meat), and juanes (turmeric-laced rice, with chicken or pork, cooked in banana or bijao leaves), as well as some less pedestrian items such as turtle and cayman.

Cayman meat, with a type of roasted seeds

Bottom: Roasted plantains; Right: Tacacho, with bits of cecina

Another favorite snack in the region -and one much missed by at least one iquiteno cab driver in Lima- is suri.

Suri are the grubs of a beetle, Rhynchophorus palmarum, which lays its eggs inside palm trunks. There, the larvae burrow, feed, and grow fat for 50 to 70 days before pupating.  In parts of Latin America that rely on the production of palm oil or coconut products for a living, the grubs are considered a pest.  In Peru's jungle communities, however, they are a treat.

I had mine roasted.

Upon biting into a suri one is immediately struck by the fattiness of the grubs.  It is not surprising that they came to be viewed as a treat in a land where, for millenia, people have had to take advantage of every precious source of calories they could get their hands on.

The taste was somewhat reminiscent of the fatty trimmings off of a cooked pork roast.   To be fair, I expect most people are turned off by the fatty, oily mouth feel before they even get to the flavour.  It was not an altogether unpleasant flavour, but I won't claim to have liked it.

After eating the guts and juices, I was left with the tough skin.  It was a bit like chewing on a plastic bag.  I just spat it out.

Iquitos excursions

On our first full day in Iquitos (last Friday) we ventured to the port district of Nanay, at the eastern end of the city and near the mouth of the Nanay River, in order to contract a boat tour of the area's tourist amenities.

We hired a boat and headed out for our excursion on up the Nanay River.  Our rough itinerary was to visit a Bora native "village", the Butterfly Farm, the serpentarium, the confluence of the Nanay and Amazon rivers, and to see grey river dolphins.   We probably should have spotted a red flag when the guide told us that he wouldn't be taking us to  the serpentarium that my cousin mentioned but to a "new one".

Anyway, the excursion was a mixed success, but enjoyable nonetheless.

The Boras

Our first stop was a ways up the Momón River, a tributary of the Nanay, at a Bora native "village". 

After walking in from the river bank we arrived at a clearing dominated by an impressive Bora-style hut.  In its shade were several men and women, as well as some children, dressed in short barkcloth skirts and wearing feather headresses and seed necklaces.  These latter they promptly put on our heads, and invited us to sit down, whereupon young girls promply appeared with small pots of a black paint, with which they drew lines on our cheeks.

The head man explained that they were members of the Bora tribe and that they would teach us about their culture and perform five dances for us.   He also revealed that the cost per person would be 20 soles -which would make that stop alone as expensive as the boat we had hired.

While he waited for the rest of his crew to arrive from somewhere beyond the bushes and trees, we found out that the actual Bora villages are two hours further up the river.

When the rest of the group assembled -a collection of bored-looking middle-aged women, one missing an eye, and young women who clearly felt there were better ways to spend a holiday and party weekend than dancing in a circle with their shirts off for a handful of tourists- they launched into the dances, accompanied by their singing and the men's rythmic thumping of the ground with wood staves.  There was no explanation of the context of the dances nor the meaning of the words.

Then, as soon as they were done, the women rushed to us and started tying beadwork and snakeskin bands on our arms and putting necklaces around our necks.  When we refused to buy them, and gave them back, more than a few got testy and One-Eye came up to collect the 20 sol per head fee.  It was clear that our time there was done and that we'd received all the "teaching about our culture" we were going to get.

Animal Refuge

Our next stop was rather more interesting and definitely a more positive experience.  It was at the Amazonas Sueño del Momón animal rescue center and zoo.   The center takes in animals confiscated from the animal trade and rehabilitates them and releases them far from human settlements.

The zoo itself -set up on stilts due to occasional river flooding, as had actually happened a few weeks ago (parts of Iquitos still had drifts of silt in the streets)- was on the small side, and focused on smaller animals, but still was a fun place to visit, and a chance to get up-close-and-personal with a few of the animals.

Ocelot

Three-toed sloth

Anaconda

 Margay

 

Monkey place

We decied to skip the butterfly farm, so our final stop was at a place our guide described as a monkey-rearing facility but in fact was the farm of a friend of his who'd turned it into a sort of very mini zoo, with a couple of three-toed sloths, a 15ft anaconda, a mata mata turtle, a fawn, and some monkeys as the whole complement of animals.  For another 20 soles wed be treated to vaguely described tour of the place, which turned out to amount to nothing more than a circle through the field with stops at each small cage.  Frankly, we all felt a bit ripped-off for the second time that day.

However, it was a bit made up for by the antics of the free-roaming monkeys that were there.  The marmosets were shy and hyperactive, but there were a pair of woolly monkeys that were not shy at all, and a cute-as-can-be baby howler monkey that really wanted us to hold him, and he kept grabbing onto Nico and Rafa's feet and bare legs, much to their consternation.

One of the larger woolly monkeys climbed up my arm when I offered it, and swung from it by his tail for a few seconds before climbing up to my shoulder, grabbing be about the head, and going nuts rubbing his lips on my moustache.  It was a bit disconcerting, let me tell you.

Fortunately after I pried him off, he decided it would instead be fun to pester one of the sloths for a while, before settling down in a chair to suck on his own penis for a bit.

Confluence of the waters

One of the things that we did get to experience -and not for 20 soles- was visiting the zone where the dark, tannic waters of the Nanay River meet the brown, silt-laden waters of the Amazon, and flow side by side in distinct bands before mingling.

I'd, of course, heard of such a thing and seen photos of it, but it was rather neat to witness it firsthand and close up.