Just another day in Iquitos

Yesterday I went out shopping for a pareing knife. I walked along exploring the shops and went into a number of shops which looked like they might have had one.

In a furniture store this red and gold chesterfield set caught my eye. It is very well made, firmly padded and comfortable. If I was going to live here I would have bought it. $650 US for the three pieces.

I was in many different kinds of shops and in each they told me to go two or three more blocks to find a knife. After about six repetitions of that I found myself at Belen Market.

I wasn't planning to go there but thought since I was there I would take a look. It was very crowded and I found it tiring pushing through all those crowds in the heat. I stayed on the upper level of the market where it is safer. At the back of the market where it slopes down the hill it begins to get a bit dodgy and farther down on the river bed where the poor live it is quite unsafe to go alone. Another time I was here I was down there with two other women, a moto-taxi driver and a security guard hired by the taxi driver. Belen Market is huge. Besides meat, fish, fruit and vegetables you can get almost anything you need. There are food stalls, vendors of locally prepared medicines, hand crafts and clothing. I found a suitable knife and also a pair of men's grey socks to wear back at camp in the evening when the mosquitoes are out.

Later I met Emily and we went to Al Frio y Al Fuego, a gourmet restaurant on the river, for lunch and a swim.

This is the restaurant's boat which brings people out to the restaurant. You can see Iquitos in the background.

The dinning room is on the upper floor and the main floor is a bar.

The color of the water is due to vegetation and silt and a good bit of sewage too I would think.

The pool area is on a separate platform joined to the main building by small bridges.

As you can see, the pool is clean and it hangs down into the river water.

The bar....

The pool. We swam first and then had lunch at one of the poolside tables.





Looking from poolside toward the restaurant.

The docking area for the boats and the foyer of the resturant.

This boat is pure luxurey compared to a typical water taxi.

A shot of the balsam logs which the restaurant sits on.

Today I got up at my usual (for here) 6AM and had the hotel complimentary breakfast before heading out to meet the gang at Dawn on the Amazon for coffee/breakfast where the chairs are good and the living is easy. We chatted and drank cold drinks there until noon.

Then we decided to go for lunch at a pizza place called Antica a few blocks away and sat and chatted there until two when I left to go back to my room to rest and blog.

It's like that here, you never feel hurried to leave any restaurant.

We saw this nice bit of wall art while walking around.

I feel like my cold is turning around and I am glad of that as we go back to camp Monday morning.

Tomorrow will be another quiet day of repacking bags and getting ready to go.