Someone must have changed the channel, I feel like I’m in a new film: 1,500 kilometers further north, 3,950 meters lower and only about 500 km from the equator, everything is different than before ….
.
Iquitos, home to around 150,000 people, can only be reached by boat or plane. At first glance, you can see the history of this city: founded by Jesuits in 1750, it became prosperous in the 1870-1880s thanks to rubber, and this continued for 30 years, during which the city grew considerably and Art Nouveau architecture was built. The natives were mistreated as slaves. This prosperity ended abruptly when the British Henry Wickham succeeded in secretly smuggling rubber seeds to Asia. As a result, rubber plantations were established in Malaysia, which were cheaper and easier to harvest. Iquitos was almost bankrupt as a result. It can happen that quickly …. Every attempt to grow other profitable crops, such as tobacco or bananas, failed. Oil and tourism are now the main sources of income.
This history is legible in the city, with many houses standing empty and in poor condition.
.
By the way, I’m always asked where I’m from, to which I reply “Germany, Cologne”, sometimes they answer “ah, Colonia” or look questioningly. If I then answer “Cerca de Dortmund” (near Dortmund), at least the men usually know roughly where it is. 😃 (Best wishes to you, Karin!) Yesterday a conversation about Peruvian footballers started, but unfortunately I couldn’t keep up ….
.
And then: the cloud of Kinski-Herzog hovers over everything, really everything here in Iquitos. There are small or large relics of Fitzgeraldo on countless corners, numerous pictures, parts of ships and nameplates in the hotel, restaurants are of course also called Fitzgeraldo (with an air-conditioned dining room, which was great).
.
At the markets (below are photos from two of them) there was also a distinctly different atmosphere to those in the Andes, i.e. those that have significantly more tourism. Up there (on the way to Machu Pichu) the atmosphere towards tourists and therefore also towards cameras was rather tense, I was often asked directly for money, here in the Amazon I am greeted very often, very nicely and not asked directly for payment when taking photos. I have the feeling that people are happy to meet someone who is not normally here. I feel reminded of my first market photos in Syria. (Best wishes to you, Heike!) On first impressions, working here seems to be getting easier, hopefully.
.
The whole atmosphere in this city is very different to what I’ve experienced so far. There are a lot more people outside, hanging around, just loitering, there are a lot more men on the streets. Music is blaring out of numerous doorways or stores, it sounds like Cuban music, at least I feel reminded of Cuba. The subject of music is very interesting, what music is played where. This morning at breakfast it was Boney M., which was hard to bear … but I have to admit that I also have difficulties with the panpipe elevator music, the one I like best is: none.
The different climate has left its mark on my body, today I felt hungry for the first time in a long time, in the Andes I hardly had an appetite, here it was different today. The desire to do the same as my hotel neighbors is also great: yesterday they were standing in the hotel pool with their cell phones and a beer. The desire for a beer or the long-awaited pisco sour is here.
.
When I got hungry but didn’t fancy a touristy restaurant like last night, I longed for a simple one where the locals eat, often with a menu consisting of soup and a segundo. Of course I didn’t know any, so I asked the stall owner, from whom I had just bought limes, for a tip. He whistled to a tuktuk driver who was standing right next to us, he whistled anyway to give him the name of a restaurant to take me to. I was a little worried as to whether it was a restaurant where I could eat with a European stomach, but I felt like going for it. When I arrived, it became clear that it was a wonderfully simple one, I was the only foreigner, I ordered a menu where at least the soup was better than the one I had eaten last night. Wonderful! On the way back to the hotel, again by tuktuk, we stopped briefly at a café where I took coffee and cake to enjoy in peace and quiet in my air-conditioned hotel room. Just before I jumped straight back into the pool. It’s all very nice!
.
And finally, a quick reminder: it’s around 38 degrees and a heatwave is sweeping over us, which even the Peruvians find unusual and exhausting – they’re sweating too.
.
The pictures below show, among others:
a knife grinder turning his whetstone by hand,
tobacco to be dried, in the middle of the dense hustle and bustle, hand-rolled tobacco being sold to the left.
.
Comments