Moyobamba Orchids
Even the sculpture on top of the fountain in the main plaza is an orchid.
Moyobamba is famous for orchids.
You might not guess that from my two previous blogs, which were all about birds. I did go to Moyobamba to bird, but I also spent some time checking out the town and the orchid gardens.
Local Ice Cream
My first evening in Moyobamba was a Saturday and there was a pop-up market in the main plaza with locally grown coffee, chocolate, and my favorite, a local ice cream maker. Kocco’s Helados makes ice cream with locally grown fruit, including the white fruit pulp that’s around cacao beans in the pod. I also tried an Amazonian berry called camu camu and a tiny mango called tapisho.
Camu Camu Ice Cream
Even better, the same ice cream maker is at the orchid gardens.
Ice Cream & Orchids
Doesn’t that sound like a great afternoon? The entrance for the orchid gardens is only s/5 soles, just over $1 and an ice cream cone was s/6. The orchid garden also had a great view over the fields on the edge of town and an impressive variety of orchids and is also the sales center for Orchideas Amazónicas. In the forests around Moyobamba, botanists have recorded over 3,500 varieties of orchids.
Chocolate & Orchids
Just across the street from the orchid garden is a new chocolate museum: Museo del Chocolate Bakau. The upstairs where they’ll have the interactive museum isn’t quite finished yet, but it’ll be ready by the end of the year, timed for the holidays.
River & Rice Fields
From the town overlook, near the orchid garden, you can see the Mayo River and flooded rice fields.
Amazonian Medicinals
The red bottles are sangre de grado, the sap of an Amazonian tree used on cuts and burns. It’s antibacterial and stops bleeding.
Aguaje Palm Fruit
Aguaje is mostly used to decrease menopause & peri-menopause symptoms but it’s also delicious.
Olla de Barro
The most famous restaurant in Moyobamba is Olla de Barro, which means “clay cooking pot.” I had a "chonta” salad, made with white palm strips. They also serve “juane,” which I first tried in Iquitos. It’s rice and usually chicken, wrapped in a bird of paradise leaf and boiled or steamed. On the menu above, you can see they have juane with avispa (wasp) and the usual pollo (chicken).
Peruvian Poke
I love that Peruvians are into sushi and poke, albeit with more Peruvian than Japanese flavors. I had dinner a couple times at Mayu Sushi.
Birding Moyobamba
If you want to see what else I did while I was in Moyobamba, check out my blogs about birding with Ikam Expeditions and at the Tingana Nature Preserve.
How to get there?
To get to Moyobamba, I flew from Lima to Tarapoto, which takes about an hour and a half. From Tarapoto it was about a two hour drive to Moyobamba. I stayed at a small hotel near Moyobamba’s main square called Country Club. It was fine but bore no resemblance to a country club. The town is at 2,822 feet above sea level, so it’s not as hot as the low jungle like Iquitos and having a fan in my room was plenty. I didn’t need air conditioning.
Leaving Moyobamba
My next stop was Chachapoyas and I took the 10:30 bus, which didn’t get there until after 4pm because we stopped for lunch in Nuevo Cajamarca and there was a lot of construction along the road.
Planning a Peru Trip?
Contact me for personalized advice on how to plan an amazing trip to Peru!
