VISITING THE AMAZONIAN MANATEE ON THE HIGHWAY.

On March 24 I went to visit the Institute for Investigation of the Peruvian Amazon (IIAP). It is located on the highway to Nauta near the airport of Iquitos. It is a place where you can learn about the Amazonian manatee. I took my friend Jon Hamel from Canada to visit this wonderful place full of vegetation, trees, and lots of birds. It was not too hot because the previous night it was raining, so there were a lot of mosquitoes. Inside, we met Darwin, a volunteer guide who told us about the exotic manatees, and endangered species.

The Amazonian manatee is endangered because people capture and kill them for their oil and meat. My friend Jon got to feed the manatee water lettuce (aquatic plant), and a type of milk made especially for them. The people working in the center are volunteers, biologists, and students from universities who go there to learn more about these creatures. We were given the following information: Of the all the manatee species in the world, the Amazonian manatee is the smallest, they suck milk from under the armpits of their mothers. The Amazonian manatee drinks milk for the first 2 years of its life, and after 1-2 months they also start to eat aquatic plants. Female manatees will give birth to just one calf after a gestation period of 12-13 months. There is a waiting period of 4-5 years before they can have another calf. The Amazonian manatee can grow to almost 3 meters long, and weighs about 450 kilograms. They can reach the age of about 50-60 years. Evolutionarily speaking, manatees are considered to be related to elephants.

The Amazonian manatee is very important because it is a herbivorous aquatic mammal; it has been estimated that manatees consume between 8-10% of their body weight in vegetation every day. Due to these characteristics, the Amazonian manatee is considered a biological controller of aquatic weeds. If the manatees are exterminated, aquatic weeds could grow without control very rapidly, causing a reduction in overall water capacity, obstruction of hydraulic dams and pump stations, and impede boat navigation. In addition, the weeds would block sunlight from reaching life below the water, reducing photosynthesis and oxygen production.

This would cause an aquatic ecosystem unbalance. For these reasons, the Amazonian manatee is very important and this center (IIAP) is a good place to visit and learn more about them while you´re traveling thought Iquitos Thanks.

BELEN MARKET IQUITOS PERU

BELEN MARKET TOUR On Thursday 24th I went to Belen market with my friend Jon Hamel from Canada to show him the exotic market here in the Amazon. There are a lot of things to see here, the market reminds you a bit of open air markets in India.

We started walking along the Boulevard which has a good view of the Itaya River and the buildings constructed during the Rubber age. Here in the Amazon, we have many rich houses thanks to the Rubber boom, but we have to take care of the buildings. As they age, the homes become more valuable.

Jon and I had a pleasant walk through Belen Market. There are many plants and roots sold that are not grown here in the Amazon such as: potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, onions, garlic, ginger, etc. Anyways, you can find those things in Belen market because businesses and people need those things for cooking. These products come by boat from Lima or from the Andes. But Iquitos has this advantage - the Amazon provides many types of regional plants such as: sweet potatoes, wild potatoes, wild tomatoes, cilantro and wild cilantro, cocona (yellow citrus berry), and camu camu (red citrus berry). This berry contains more vitamin C than lemons. There are lots of impressive things to see, and its fun to walk around the market, but you need to be a little careful. Belen market is a huge place and pickpockets could be watching your every move. So it is better to go there with somebody you know and trust. We saw Amazon plants like green onions and, passion fruit, and then I showed him the kind of fish we have. We also saw the Millosoma Macropomun (or as we call it Gamitana), a really delicious fish that can be cooked in any way - smoked, grilled, fried, in soup...waooo.

Then we saw Amazon water snails and land snails, Jon was impressed to see that those things are also eaten here! There is a huge variety of meat on sale - alligator meat, many kinds of fish, including piranha, and also wild meat like white lipped peccary or as locals call it, Huangana, and the collared peccary or Sajino, two types of are wild pigs. We went to the Pasaje Paquito (Paquito’s passage) to see medicinal plants, medicinal roots, and animal skins of Anaconda snakes, Giant otters, jaguars, and many crafts. Belen also is the place to buy Mapacho, Amazon tobacco. We met a friend named Lito and headed to lower Belen to take a slow boat and spend some time on the Itaya River. Lower Belen has a market for live animals. We saw many animals for sale like sloths, parakeets, baby alligators, and small toucans. It’s sad that they are in cages rather than in their natural habitats. After that we took a Peque peque (small boat, named for the noise the motor makes) on the Itaya River to learn about how the people on the river banks live (very simply!).
There were a lot of boats which bring people from different villages close to Iquitos to sell their goods in Belen (things like bananas, charcoal, yucca or cassava). Sailing on the Itaya River, we could see the skyline of Iquitos and the few large buildings that we have in the hot city. We stopped in a port called El Huequito, then we took a motorcycle to go Nanay Port to have a lunch of grilled fish wrapped in Bijau leaf with some tacachos (mashed bananas fried in oil with pork and shaped like a tennis ball ), with cocona sauce, and a couple of beers. That’s Belen – it’s a good place to visit, there are many different things to see and taste! I hope you like this simple story about Belen market in Iquitos, Peru – the Amazon jungle.


The Gamitana fish smoked and wrapped on the Bijao leaf for more flavore, and Cocona spicy souse and Tacacho (mashed roasted bananas with oil pork, salt) Delicious....!! Belen Port into this place you can see many boat goes to different destinations (villages) like this one called TITANIC, all this kind of boat bring everyday different kind of fruits, vegetables, meat, etc from the different villages on the many tributaris of the Amazon river. The Jaguar skin on the Pasae Paquito, place in Belen Market you can Find different things like medicinal plants and handycrafts.

Different kind of meat like Paca, (one of bigger rodents), wild pigs, etc.

The giant Amazon land snail, sellding in Belen Market rich in every kind of prepare.