images from aurora toshiko king

At the foot of the tallest building (the ten-story, vacant, towering concrete shell of an edifice pictured below) in Iquitos, a man has erected a shoe-shine stand made of painted plywood.

With a population of mostly sandal and flip-flop wearing people, the tradition of shoe-shining appears to be mostly lost here.  Like all  vendors in the streets, the man with the shoe-shine stand  spends most of his day waiting for customers. Very few stop; I’ve seen none on the many occasions I’ve walked past.

The streets of Iquitos are filled with vendors: balloon vendors, popsicle salesmen, droves of moto-taxi drivers, street children selling hand-cracked brazil nuts, vendors of sandwiches and hand made ice cream and cigarettes, indigenous women  from the distant village of Pucallpa (two day journey by boat) who roam the Plaza de Armas, shaking a rattle made of goard and offering colorful hand-embroidered quilts depicting Ayahuasca visions.  Time takes on a different meaning here.  Hours and days blend together and the vendors of Iquitos circle the same territory, rest in the same shade, park their moto-taxi at the same corner,  breath the same hot, humid jungle air day after day.  

There is an unwavering resilience pent-up in this steamy place, exemplified to the extreme by the street vendors of Iquitos Peru.