From: The Mini-tis

Our first impressions of Iquitos weren't particularly flattering.  Its streets are dusty, cracked and potholed and have quite a bit of rubbish around (though a lot of them are presently under reconstruction).  The architecture was almost all masonry block buildings of two or three stories with fairly sloppy brickwork and unattractive facades.  And it's noisy. Not quite parrots in Letícia noisy, but there are Moto-cars (motorcycle rickshaws) everywhere.  Like, everywhere. I noted that even if no one in Santa Rosa walked anywhere there were still too many motocars there. In Iquitos no one really did walk much of anywhere, and there were correspondingly even more Motocars.  The noise of them filled every street to the point that walking on one of the ones that was closed for reconstruction became a blessed relief.

And to top it off, when we arrived at our hotel (after our motocar driver did his best to take us somewhere he'd get a kickback from instead) there was no one there.

Fortunately for Iquitos (and for us I guess!) every time I got thinking about how miserable it was, some little individual spark lifted it up again and gave it a shining human face.

Like the woman and daughter who ran the little restaurant where we had dinner.  They seemed so excited to see us. When we asked if they had any food with no meat or chicken they seemed disappointed, but immediately perked up and gave us directions to two nearby vegetarian restaurants.  And when we decided we weren't likely going to be able to find the places and would just eat there anyway, they happily led us through all of the dishes on display, explaining the names and ingredients in each.  We ended up eating dinner there each of our three nights in Iquitos.

We had similarly happy experiences with motocar drivers (who universally took us where we wanted for a reasonable price with no haggling over the fare), lunch counter proprietors in a couple of different markets, the boat ticket sellers with whom we negotiated our onward passage who seemed genuinely pleased to have us aboard and, of course, the staff at the iPeru office.

More than just about anywhere else I've ever been, Peru's tourism ministry does a fabulous job of making life easy and interesting for independent visitors.  Every large town will have an iPeru office filled with knowledgeable, English speaking staff who are happy to give advice on how to see or do just about anything in their region, no matter whether it's on the official tourist brochures or not.

With a bit more time to look around Iquitos on Saturday and Sunday we found more to like about the city itself.
We'd remembered Peruvian cuisine fondly, and Iquitos definitely lived up to the memories.

The central market, which was otherwise a bit small and underwhelming, had quite a few nice little lunch kitchen stalls.  Places like these were some of my fondest memories of Peru.  Around lunchtime they'd offer fixed menus of soup, a choice of main courses and a drink for a very reasonable price (NZD 2 or 3).  Once we had grilled fish, once fried fish and once a mixture of various things (including surprisingly tasty beef tongue) put together by the proprietress after she'd been sold out of the first two options I requested ("I'll get you something good.")

And of course there was ceviche.  Fish marinated in lime juice, salt and spices, served with crispy corn kernels and root vegetables.  It's practically Peru's national dish.  Our first was at a fairly fancy place where we accompanied it with a Cusqeña Negro dark lager (a bit too sweet for my taste).  Then on Sunday afternoon we had some from a street cart. Probably a germophobe/nervous eater's worst nightmare. Raw fish from a street cart in a tropical climate, 800km as the crow flies from the ocean.  But Iquitos ceviche is made with that wonderful Amazon River fish, and both iterations of it were tangy, savoury and delicious.

And of course there was the aforementioned dinner spot.  Most of our meals were various things steamed inside of leaves: juanes (chicken and egg and seasoned rice in banana), humitas (fish and yucca in banana) and tamales (cornmeal with a tiny bit of chicken in corn husks).

Given a bit more time to look around the city we also discovered that Iquitos as a city has some charms to offer visitors as well. You just have to know where to find them.

I'm a big fan of markets and the Belen market in Iquitos is a great one.  More a whole commercial neighbourhood than a discrete marketplace, we first wandered in around 15:00 on Saturday. A few stalls on the edges had shut for the day, but everything else was still in full swing.
It felt particularly exciting, mysterious even, with the streets squeezed into narrow laneways by goods stalls on both sides and sunlight filtered through rain tarps above.

This impression worked its magic particularly strongly on the traditional medicine street where stalls were filled with unidentifiable herbs and plants (just how many Amazonian plants could I have identified? Okay, I admit it, virtually none) and row upon row of bottles of murky tinctures and extracts.

The two main plazas weren't super attractive in and of themselves, but on Saturday and Sunday nights they were full of fun activity.  This ranged from the military lowering of the flags ceremony to (what appeared to be... The minimalist costumes kept me from being completely sure) a drag dance show surrounded by an appreciative and participative audience.

And even the historic centre had a few gems.  The best of the buildings, as in Manaus, dated from the late 19th and early 20th century rubber boom days.  There wasn't anything like the Teatro Amazonas, but there were a dozen or so nice remnants of the age, several with beautiful tiled facades.

But the incontrovertible highlight of our time in Iquitos was the trip out to the CREA (Centro de Rescate Amazonico).

The bus trip 15km or so out of town was worthwhile in its own right.  Outbound the bus was jam packed, but the windows were wide open.  And the bus cab were very fun they were plunked on top of large truck body, hand made from local materials (i.e. wood!) and brightly painted.

And then there was the CREA itself.  It's a conservation centre that takes in domestic animals that have been ill treated or abandoned, or wild animals that have been orphaned after their parents have been killed, or endangered species that have been seized before they're sold/exported.  These animals are rehabilitated where necessary and reintroduced into the wild where possible.

This means that the centre's residents are constantly coming and going.  Typical stays range from just a few weeks in quarantine to months or even years for some that need to grow or relearn wild behaviour.  Some even have to learn these things to begin with. Our guide told us the story of a river otter who arrived only a few weeks old and, as swimming is a behaviour taught to young otters by their mothers, needed to learn how to swim from scratch!

The centre was also full of sloths, monkeys, coatamundi (super cute! They behave like monkeys, but have an adorable long snout), birds, caimans and turtles. 

But what it's best known for are the manatees (manatis in Spanish).  These are mostly rescued babies whose mothers are killed for food (our guide told us the story of his grandfather who lamented the decline of the river's manatees not because his grandson had never got to see one in the wild but because they tasted so good).

We'd kind of been hoping that there would be some really small ones in residence, but fortunately (for the manatees!) There were only two present.  Both were about 18 months old.  They'd soon be joining other near adults in the larger socialization ponds for a few more months before being released back into the river as independent adults.

Sarah dubbed these two toddler manatees The Mini-tis.

Despite its little (and big, even though they were called mini-tis) delights, we figured we'd had about enough of Iquitos after three days there.

We'd found our boat on Saturday afternoon and took a Moto-car to Puerto Masusa on Monday morning to buy our tickets and get aboard for our final river journey on the Amazon.