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Loreto Peru
Iquitos Buildings, Real Jewels
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The Peruvian jungle guards amidst its steamy foliage and the mysterious
murmur of the Amazon River, a collection of architectural
jewels that take visitors by surprise, both for their beauty
as well as their unique style: these are the legacy of the
past of the rubber barons, the powerful landholders who turned
the Peruvian jungle into a veritable commercial paradise at
the end of the nineteenth century.
It was the era known as the rubber boom, a golden age for
European adventurers who amassed vast fortunes from the gum
trees that covered hundreds of hectares in the region, and
which supplied the raw material that was indispensable for
the flourishing industry of the time. Cities like Iquitos
-which up until then had been a small port town- turned into
one long party, where no expense was spared, nor eccentricity
nor luxury lacking.
As part of the legacy of this age of abundance, Iquitos still
bears traces of the extravagant taste of the rubber barons:
mosaic tiles in Italian-style palaces, the bustling riverside
walkway or the famous residence designed by Gustave Eiffel
and which was built from metal sheets carried by hundreds
of men through the jungle. Today, in the city of Iquitos,
the modest local homes -not without a certain kitsch charm-
exist alongside French mansions, today largely used as public
offices.
Over time, with the invention of nylon and other alternative
products, demand for rubber dwindled, signifying the end of
the rubber barons. The memory of this past filled with abundance,
however, lives on in the eccentric buildings which testify
to an exuberant and wild era. |
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