Inside Belén's "Witches' Market": Medicine, Pusanga, and Wildlife Trade

Iquitos, the capital of the Peruvian Amazon, operates as a large city with no road connection to Peru's national highway network. At the edge of the city, where concrete slopes into the floodplains of the Itaya River, lies the Belén neighborhood. Belén is dominated by an open-air market that serves residents and traders arriving from surrounding river communities. Within this labyrinth of produce and river fish is a specific alley known locally as Pasaje Paquito. To foreign media and tourism brochures, this alley is known as the "Witches' Market." But the strangest thing about the witches' market may be how misleading that name actually is.

Beyond the "Witches' Market" Label

The exotic label is widely used in foreign travel media and tourism marketing, a phrase that can easily suggest something more occult and clandestine than the market actually is. The reality is far more pragmatic. Pasaje Paquito is an open, highly commercialized aisle known for vendors selling traditional Amazonian remedies and spiritual products. For many residents of Iquitos and the surrounding rural areas, this market is an important source of traditional remedies. In a region where formal medical infrastructure can be expensive or distant, vendors provide access to a long-established body of Amazonian ethnobotanical knowledge.

Botany, Ayahuasca, and Amazonian Medicine

The stalls lining Pasaje Paquito are dense with organic material, reflecting the diversity of plant materials traded across the region. Much of the trade is entirely botanical. Vendors sell barks, saps, resins, roots, and other plant-based preparations for a wide range of ailments. Most visibly, tables are stacked with bundles of Banisteriopsis caapi vines and Psychotria viridis leaves, two plants commonly combined in ayahuasca preparations. Yet, the botanical trade here exists alongside another, much more controversial market.

The True Meaning of Pusanga

Among the products that have drawn particular attention are pusangas. In Amazonian urban shamanism, a pusanga is traditionally understood as a magical perfume or love potion, intended to attract affection, influence romantic relationships, or strengthen a desired bond. Anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna, in his 1986 ethnographic study Vegetalismo, documented how such practices fit into a broader belief system where spiritual intentions are channeled through specific plants and scents. Pusanga forms part of longstanding mestizo spiritual traditions documented in the region, and many purely botanical variations exist, relying on specific fragrant flowers and roots.

Where Wildlife Trafficking Enters the Picture

The critical issue arises when traditional spiritual practices intersect with the illegal wildlife trade. Investigations of wildlife products sold as or for use in pusanga have documented that certain mixtures incorporate derivatives from poached animals. A 2021 field report by World Animal Protection documented illegal wildlife products being sold at Belén Market. Investigators found that some vendors sell the genitalia of the Amazon river dolphin (boto), jaguar fangs, and primate parts, marketed under beliefs that particular animals or their body parts may carry spiritual potency.

Commercial trade in protected wildlife and wildlife products is regulated or prohibited under Peruvian law, depending on the species and authorization. For the protected species documented in the cited investigations, unauthorized commercial extraction and sale are prohibited under SERFOR regulations. The wildlife products sold in the market form part of broader hunting and trafficking pressures affecting Amazonian wildlife. Pasaje Paquito is a marketplace shaped by longstanding Amazonian ethnobotanical traditions, while simultaneously serving as a visible example of the pressures illegal wildlife trade places on Amazonian biodiversity.

What Visitors Should Not Buy

Visiting the market offers a direct look into Iquitos' culture, but it requires awareness. Visitors can explore the market responsibly provided they avoid wildlife products and ask vendors about the origin of unfamiliar animal-derived ingredients. Recognizing the difference between botanical traditional medicine and illicit wildlife derivatives helps keep visitor curiosity from supporting the illegal wildlife trade.