What Should We Do in Iquitos?
Iquitos is a very unique city in the center of the Peruvian Amazon. We have a little free time during our stay in the big city and we need your help to decide how to spend our time. After talking with local people and looking through guidebooks we’ve narrowed our options to these three experiences:
1. Butterfly Farm – they have over 40 species of the most colorful (and least dangerous) insects of the Amazon. We can learn more about the interesting lifecycle of bugs and catch a glimpse of some rescued animals at the farm. We are told they have a tapir, a puma, an anteater, monkeys, and possibly a caiman. It sounds like they are a legitimate rehabilitation center rather than a typical zoo. The farm releases almost 80% of their butterflies into the wild.
2. Tribal Dance – there are two indigenous groups, within a short boat ride of Iquitos, who perform traditional dances for tourists. They wear ceremonial outfits and duplicate an authentic tribal dance but it is just for show. The people performing the dance are not truly living the traditional life anymore.
3. Institute of Traditional Medicine – this is a hospital and education center funded by the Peruvian government that specializes in the development of traditional medicines. There are unbelievable gardens which house over 600 species of vegetables and 800 species of medicinal herbs. Staff are available to show us around and explain some of the plants’ uses.
Please cast your vote and let us know how you want us to spend our day in jungle capital of Iquitos.
1. Butterfly Farm – they have over 40 species of the most colorful (and least dangerous) insects of the Amazon. We can learn more about the interesting lifecycle of bugs and catch a glimpse of some rescued animals at the farm. We are told they have a tapir, a puma, an anteater, monkeys, and possibly a caiman. It sounds like they are a legitimate rehabilitation center rather than a typical zoo. The farm releases almost 80% of their butterflies into the wild.
2. Tribal Dance – there are two indigenous groups, within a short boat ride of Iquitos, who perform traditional dances for tourists. They wear ceremonial outfits and duplicate an authentic tribal dance but it is just for show. The people performing the dance are not truly living the traditional life anymore.
3. Institute of Traditional Medicine – this is a hospital and education center funded by the Peruvian government that specializes in the development of traditional medicines. There are unbelievable gardens which house over 600 species of vegetables and 800 species of medicinal herbs. Staff are available to show us around and explain some of the plants’ uses.
Please cast your vote and let us know how you want us to spend our day in jungle capital of Iquitos.
Comments
We think you should go to the Butterfly Farm because we would like to learn more about the animals there. We would also like you to take some pictures of the animals there and post them on your website.
Posted by: 5V | May 8, 2007 10:13 AM
We think you should go to a butterfly farm because we like butterflies. We would like to see some cool butterfly pictures!
Posted by: Anonymous | May 8, 2007 2:06 PM
We think that you should go to watch the tribal dance so that you can learn how they celebrate or entertain themselves when in the rainforest.
Posted by: 5V | May 10, 2007 9:18 AM
We think you should go to the butterfly farms to see what type of butterflies are there and the butterflies are probably really pretty.
Posted by: 5V | May 10, 2007 9:22 AM
We would like you to see the tribal dance performance because we think it would be cool to learn about the dances of their cuture. If you go see the dances we would like you to post a video of one of the dances on your website.
Posted by: 5V | May 10, 2007 9:23 AM
We think you should visit a butterfly farm because we would like to see the different kinds of butterflies in the Amazon.
Posted by: 5V | May 10, 2007 9:24 AM
We think you should learn about medical cures because we want to see how it is different from ours in America.
Posted by: 5M | May 10, 2007 2:15 PM
We think seeing a trible dance would be super, super cool because it is original to the tribe!!
Posted by: 5S | May 10, 2007 3:04 PM
We think you should go to the butterfly farm because we are interested in the animals.
Posted by: 5S | May 10, 2007 3:05 PM
We think you should see a tribal dance because you've seen a lot of animals in the wild and it would be interesting to see more people.
Posted by: 5S | May 10, 2007 3:07 PM
hi we been learning a lot of things from this website send more stuff about the rainforest PS keep seraching for different things in the rainforest
Posted by: keyontay harper | May 15, 2007 2:10 PM