Of Pisco and Peru: Iquitos

Pt. 1

The Iquitos Airport restroom: A man-bun eco-traveler bearing a backpack with a designer pot leaf sticker, plays Candy Crush on his iPhone while taking a piss.

Unbelievable, I muse, darting to a stall for privy time and a quick game of Angry Birds.

Photo by Liao Je Wei on Unsplash

Ahhh. That’s better. Business is done and my birds are still angry.

As I emerge from the airport, I find Auntie M waving at mototaxis with her pink ‘DISCO BITCH’ folding hand fan. A stylish multi-tasking technique to beat the mid-day heat.

A quick jaunt to our nearby hotel, where, owing to my bank account’s magical disappearing act, we wind up sharing a room.

Entering, I casually plop my backpack on the double bed and inspect the room. It’s a quaint, green room with all the necessities. “This is cozy.”

Auntie M looks around and smiles. “Sí.” She slings my backpack over her shoulder, then tosses it into the other room. “Two double beds. I’ll take the view of the garden.”

I spring up with a big sigh. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.

After ditching our travel gear and gulping down a couple of Cañazos, we head off to see the ‘Venice of the Amazon.’

Belen’s marketplace is like no other. Located on the floodplain of the Itaya River, thousands of families live cheek-by-jowl in this shanty town on stilts. Everything’s built for life on the water. A floating church. A floating school. Even floating gas stations.

Photo by Deb Dowd on Unsplash

I follow Auntie M as she swats and flies away. We walk the planks, ducking under drooping electrical cables slung between corrugated roofs and low-hanging laundry straining to dry in the sun-drenched humidity. Like many locals here, she’s dressed in rainstorm casual with a poncho. I’m trying my best to rock a full-on jungle badass adventurer motif, but feel like I’m coming across as Indiana Jones meets Alfalfa.

Auntie M stops to assess my garb, then screams over lively music banging out of an old boombox in a window. “Did you take your meds?”

She watches me standing there slackjawed like I’ve been assigned an algebra problem in Cantonese. “For Malaria. Yellow Fever?”

Pressing my brown felt outback fedora down above my eyebrows, I try to act suave. “Oh! Oh yeah. I got ‘em.” Holy shit.

Funky smells invade our nostrils at the rows of vendors’ booths, with locals hawking freshly chopped pieces of every type of thing-once-living, including caiman legs and a huge Amazonian fish called a paiche. Auntie M dodges darting children, defiantly shaking her head ‘No’ as locals offer up exotic jungle fruits, mollusks, insects, and freshly-hacked animal parts as delicacies.

Stopping to scratch my neck, it’s impossible not to be taken aback by the sheer bounty of live turtles, toucans, and spider monkeys, all selling for about 50 soles. I can’t help but think of the sign Auntie M translated for me on the way over. “It’s incredible that nature cries out for our help, and even more incredible that nobody listens.”

We pass the sewage stormcloud reeking of neglected garbage and swarming flies, dodging dogs and vultures as they jostle through piles of trash. Auntie M yells, “¡Naleche!” and scurries faster. Speedwalking through, I hold my breath while slapping away insects, hoping that nothing biting me is carrying malaria or worse.

I catch up with Auntie M, stopped on a plank alleyway, peering below at a preteen couple paddling past in a tiny canoe. The thin boy rows like some street waif gondolier while the girl sits, holding a purple parasol to protect against the sun. Auntie glances over at me, then back at them. They wave at us. “Hola.”

“Hola.” We wave back, admiring the youth’s cheerful innocence amidst the garbage and muck, Auntie M smiling. “¡Que linda!” before taking off.

Rounding the corner, a dead-drunk man wobbles on the plank outside one of the bars, urinating into the river as he finishes his bottle of beer. We shake our heads, continuing on without breaking stride.