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.

We bought a bag of freshly husked coconut from this man.  His stand is located deep in the Belen Market, on the edge of the Amazon.  He opens each fruit with a couple whacks of his machete, exposing a trail of milky coconut juice and the white meat of the fruit.

Downtown Lima Peru is known to locals as simply “Lima.”  Like many cities, Lima experienced a mass exodus to the suburbs several decades ago. Consequently, districts such as Miraflores and San Isidro popped up, cashing in colonial edifices for a more modern face and a greater sense of security. 

Today, we  ventured back to Lima; this time in the company of two wonderful Limeño guides: Rocio and Lucio.  We ate in a restaurant that is over a hundred years old and famous for the fact that it is periodically patronized by foreign diplomatic types. 

This picture was taken after visiting the Museo de Inquisicion where we learned about how believers tortured non-believers in underground dungeons made of rock.  Pictured here is a tienda on a street filled with underwear and pajama shops.