Iquitos and the Amazon River

The first thing I knew about Iquitos is that it's the largest city in the world that you can't get to by land, meaning either you fly (and flights can be difficult because the airport can be shut down from time to time if the local vulture population acts up and attacks an incoming plane) or you take a boat down the Amazon river a few hundred kilometers from the nearest city that is linked to Lima by road.

What to say about Iquitos? It's an island of sorts, since you cannot get into or out of it easily, so it is relatively separated from the political turmoil of the rest of the country--to a point. It is also close to the borders with Colombia and Ecuador, and south of the city there is vibrant drug trafficking activity complete with the violence and guerrilla warfare that you read about in the daily newspaper. The doctor that is leading the project tells me she works out regularly with notorious drug cartel operators in the one fancy gym of Iquitos that caters to the city's small upscale clientele. Fortunately, my work takes me north, to the new road being built between Iquitos and the newest frontier "town," Mazan.

Yesterday, we took a boat across the Amazon River--a wide, lazy river, muddy brown from all the silt and sediment that is carried by its water as it winds its way up Peru, across Brazil, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. A bridge is being built across the river that will take cars onto a new 40km road, and houses built on 10 foot stilts line the river banks--the houses look strange this time of year when the river level is low, but it is amazing to think how quickly and how much the Amazon River rises during the rainy season.

My job for this month is to plot every household, water source, mosquito habitat within a 4km radius of the road so that next month, we can begin the household level surveys to figure out people's exposure vulnerability to malaria. From January to now, the road has gone from a dirt trail to a widened dusty road, large enough for a truck to pass. In the months to come, the government will begin paving the road to firmly establish the link.

For today, I head back to my place, though the motortaxis that zip around the city, through the torrential rains that begin suddenly from a clear sky, and disappear just as suddenly, to eat my daily meal: rice, beans, and fried yuca (at least Peruvians eat aji, a spicy, tangy chili paste that I smother liberally over my rice and beans to make things more interesting).

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