Iquitos day 2

 I woke up this morning without any firm plans on what to do.

At breakfast I was talking to a guy (Mika, pronounced Misha) for Hungary that said he made arrangements with a guide to go to Belen Market and the villages that morning. He asked if I wanted to join them. Well, Yeah! That was what I was trying to arrange from yesterday, but never made any connections I was comfortable with. He had made arrangements to meet the guide at 9, only 30 minutes wait.

I checked my phone, the battery was almost finished, so I plugged it in trying to fast charge a bit. I also have a battery pack with me, but it is really slow charging. Mostly it is good enough to maintain the charge if the phone is in use, but not enough to increase the charge.

Luckily, guide, Rider, was a little late and I was able to get the charge up to about 30 percent. I was good with that. I would keep the phone plugged into the battery pack for the whole time out.

Belen Market is the large street market. No recommended for tourist to wander around in unaccompanied. I pay attention to these warnings. You can buy anything in the market, but mostly food. There are areas specializing in fruits and vegetables, fish, exotic meats such as alligator and turtle, medicinal plants and potions, and regular meats such as pork, beef and chicken.

The start of the market is only 4 blocks from the hostel, so we walked there from here. We saw everything mentioned above and more. Our guide pointed out all the different vegetables that you don't see in the regular markets, such as cassava, manioc and many other roots and vegetation.

We passed the area selling exotic meats including crocodile. Of which there are 2 types, white meat and dark meat. The white meat crocodiles are smaller, only about 3 feet long and are easier to catch. The dark meat comes from larger crocodiles that are more dangerous to catch. We didn't see any of that meat in the market.

We did see turtle meat for sale. The guide explained that there is a daily quota, quite small, of the number of turtles that can be sold each day. Turtle eggs were also available.

Other wild meats we saw were wild pigs, both fresh and dried.

The regular meats were also available, chicken, beef and pork.

There were so many  types of fish including a type of piranha. The most popular seemed to be catfish of different varieties.

After the market we headed to the waters edge to get a motored canoe to tour the floating village area. 

I think it was his canoe. One of his small nephews manned the bow and a niece was the driver.

We headed out onto the river. This is not the main amazon, but a smaller adjacent waterway. The houses are all either floating that rise and fall with the level of the water or on tall stilts. This is not the rainy season, so the water level is low. In the rainy season the water level will rise as much as 6 feet.

We out in one direction for about 15 minutes then turned back and headed in the opposite direction. As we were approaching the other end, Rider asked if we wanted to visite his family home. We'll that was a no brainer, of course. 

The picture on the right was where we docked to visit Riders house. the little structure on the right is the toilet.

We docked the boat and were greeted by a half dozen young kids. The guide then showed us his house and invited us to go up into the house. These are the really special moments on trips like this.

We were invited to go up into the house, and giving permission to roam between all the rooms. Basically it was one main room, a kitchen and 2 bedrooms.

The kitchen is very basic, cooking over coal or wood. They had electricity but there was no running water in the house.

After our visit we headed back to the market. Rider noticed my problem with my knees and balance. Very hard not to notice. He wanted to take me to a stall in the market to buy boa ointment. He said it would cure my knee if I use it for a month.

After docking, we again walked through the market until we came into the traditional herbs and