Brazil's Border with Colombia and Peru
Benjamin Constant, with artefacts, information panels and a gift shop. The music is haunting but sadly not for sale. Ticuna people run the museum.
Tabatinga
Leticia (Colombia), set up by
This tiny town, with a big sawmill and a series of little tiled houses set in bougainvillea gardens, sits on the frontier with Peru, just opposite Leticia in Colombia. There is an interesting
Ticuna indigenous cultural centre and museum
Tabatinga is theoretically 4 km from Leticia (in Colombia) but, in reality, it is the scruffy half of the same town: a long street buzzing with mopeds, a port and some untidy houses in between. There is an important Ticuna centre here, and the town is the headquarters of one of the country's most important indigenous NGOs,
FIUPAM
, fiupam@yahoo.com.br. However, there is little of interest for tourists, who are better off staying in Leticia. Flights arrive in Leticia from where you can get a minibus to Tabatinga.
The port area in Tabatinga is called Marco and the port captain is very helpful and speaks good English. There are regular boats from Manaus and from Benjamin Constant, across the water, and from Iquitos in Peru. A mosquito net for a hammock is essential if sailing upstream from Tabatinga, much less so
downstream.
This riverside city is clean and modern, though run down, and is rapidly merging into one town with neighbouring Marco in Brazil. Leticia is a good place to buy indigenous products typical of the Amazon, and tourist services are better than in Tabatinga or Benjamin Constant. The best time to visit the area is in July or August, the early months of the dry season. At weekends, accommodation may be difficult to find.
The
museum
Banco de la República
, covers local ethnography and archaeology and is set in a beautiful building with a library and a terrace overlooking the Amazon. There is a small
Amazonian zoo
, and botanical garden on the road to the airport, within walking distance of town.
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This is edited copy from Footprint Handbooks. For comprehensive details (incl address, tel no, directions, opening times and prices) please refer to book or individual chapter PDF
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