Belen Market

The most fun I had in Iquitos was at the Belen market. Belen is the poorest district in Iquitos and they call it “the Venice of the Amazon” because it floods every rainy season, leaving its streets underwater from February to April.

The market extends for many blocks and it feels like a maze as you walk through it during the hectic business day. Wherever you look there are women behind their stands, usually with a flyswatter at hand, keeping the flies away and cutting up chickens, fish and some times grilling caiman meat, which they call “lizard meat.” Yumm!

The food sits on wooden tables over a plastic tarp. There are many kinds of spices of all scents and colors that combine with the smell of the meat sitting under the sun all day. There are a lot of different fruits that are grown locally and potatoes and other produce that are brought by boat from the nearest accessible town-- Pucallpa, some five hours away.

Iquitos can only be reached by boat or plane.

The market also has an herb and remedy section. There it is possible to find the cure to any ailment or ingredients for any potion; Iquitos has a long and dominating tradition of magicians, witches and rituals, Juan Tangoa told me.

Belen is an interesting place where houses are built on stilts or over big logs of wood in order to make them float as the water level rises over five feet every year.

Unfortunately it is also the dirtiest part of the city and all the trash produced in the market gets carried away with the current.

The people were friendly and smiling as they worked. It was the perfect place to get a sense of Iquitos every day life, as they know it.