Belén Market, Iquitos

The Belén market of Iquitos (see Real Big Fish) gets inundated every year during the floodpeak of the Amazon River.  The residents of this part of the city have come up with several different strategies for dealing with the annual flooding. They build their houses on stilts (see Danau Sentarum), or on pontoons (floating logs, actually), or they build two storey houses and simply move upstairs during the flood.  The last strategy requires shoveling out a lot of mud once the floodwaters recede. [NOTE: The image above was taken in the mid-1980's.  Since then, the Amazon River has changed course and no longer flows right in front of Iquitos.  The Belén market, however, still floods every year.  Now the floodwaters come from the Itaya River.]