Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(mainly local tribespeople and poor
mestizos
) suffered virtual enslavement and some-
times death from disease or harsh treatment.
By WWI, the bottom fell out of the rubber boom as suddenly as it had begun. A British
entrepreneur smuggled some rubber-tree seeds out of Brazil, and plantations were seeded
in the Malay Peninsula. It was much cheaper and easier to collect the rubber from orderly
rubber tree plantations than from wild trees scattered in the Amazon Basin.
Iquitos suffered subsequent economic decline, supporting itself with a combination of
logging, agriculture (Brazil nuts, tobacco, bananas and
barbasco
− a poisonous vine used
by indigenous peoples to hunt fish and now exported for use in insecticides) and the ex-
port of wild animals to zoos. Then, in the 1960s, a second boom revitalized the area. This
time the resource was oil, and its discovery made Iquitos a prosperous modern town. In
recent years tourism has also played an important part in the area's economy.
Sights
Iquitos' cultural attractions, while limited, dwarf those of other Amazon cities. On the
Malecón, at the corner with Morona, is an old building housing the
Biblioteca Amazón-
days (admission for both S3). The museum includes life-sized fiberglass casts of members
of various Amazon tribes.
