Iquitos, Peru

After three weeks in San Francisco (SF) for the holidays, we came back to Peru for two weeks of Spanish class, which isn't nearly enough, but is a start.  Then, our Peru travel adventures began.

On Jan 31, we flew into Iquitos, a town in NE Peru that is only accessible by air or river.  It is a port town, historically the center of the rubber boom - and quite a posh jewel in the middle of the jungle in it's heydey.  Lots of the buildings are a bit dilapidated, but have European colonial grandeur from the late 1800's.

One claim to fame is that Mr. Eiffel, of the Eiffel Tower fame, designed a building that was assembled and still stands on the main square in Iquitos.  (for more info: http://www.destination360.com/south-america/peru/iquitos)  Today, it is a port town where  goods from the Amazon villages are collected and then sent by air or riverboat to larger cities.

We flew in Sunday afternoon and stayed at our hotel, enjoying something we don't get in Lima - a serious amount of rain.  The next day, we visited the main square and then the Belen Market, which was fascinating - we saw shaman's remedies direct from rainforest plants, lots fruits and vegetables, freshly caught fish,  caiman gators and even turtles that had been skinned or prepared for meals.  Apparently, almost anything is available here.

The guy that sold the tobacco (you can see the picture of fat rolled cigarettes and the huge rolls of tobacco leaves) was so fast at rolling them.  I should have taken a video.  We learned later at our visit to the shaman (part of our Amazon tour) that the shaman smokes these giant filterless cigarettes as part of the ceremony.  The shaman we saw must have smoked about 5 in 30 minutes!  More pictures and details in the next blog!