Belen market takes some seeing to believe. It is a heaving chaotic scene of hustle and bustle and everything is available for purchase. Huge anaconda skins decorate some of the stalls, animal skins, potions are for sale adjacent to clothing and grocery stalls. It is a sprawling centre of commerce in Iquitos and bizarrely, above the meat market Amazon Cares were running a community outreach project. I’m really impressed with what Molly has set up here, she has a great team and they are doing a lot of good. A WVS team are also here which means I am just one vet of five so there is lots of work going on and everyone seems in top form. Spaying was the name of the game on the first day, a few sick animals which needed tx and a poor cat who had been bitten on the face and lost its eye. Carolien – one of the nurses, found the poor little creature and we fixed it up back at the Amazon Cares clinic in town.
 

 

Simon is our new special friend for this trip. Marc is back but Adam is in India so another member of the extreme cameraman gang has been drafted in. Simon loves the fact I keep reminding him he is extreme at every possible opportunity (there really is an extreme cameraman club) – he has just had an extreme breakfast for example and feels extremely pleased about it. He is extremely nice and is definitely an extreme addition to the gang. The only other point of note is that Lupe is working hard on his Spanish (he has a Spanish girlfriend) so he’s currently dazzling us with the odd word in the local dialect. Almost as extreme as Simon.