ORGAN GRIND
        Journalism, home & abroad          

Large, central markets situated in cities with lax or non-existent health codes always make a strong impression upon the senses of smell and sight, and, if you're somewhat brave, taste. Peru boasts many markets and most I've frequented are loose affairs; no one blinks an eye at seeing a cadre of beige mutts wrestling over a butcher's offal down one aisle, and the strongest reaction you're likely to notice from a person having just witnessed the al fresco execution and summa

As the latter part of the above title flat-footedly implies, this weeks article has me journeying into savage, humid environs redolent of the morally queasy atmosphere of Joseph Conrad's most famous novel. Instead of the Belgian Congo, however, I find myself in Peru's Amazon Basin. I have to come clean, though. My point of penetration is quite tame by Amazon standards: the town of La Merced, which is only eight hours ENE of Lima, Peru's noxious, hideously sprawling capital.

Iquitos, in case you haven't heard of it, is the largest city in the Peruvian Amazon. As such, it absorbs anything into its bloodstream which that vast region can produce and be exchanged for hard currency. Visceral metaphors like those utilized above come to mind when thinking of Belen Market. That's because so much that's conspicuous about the place is the range of animal products to be had there, both bizarre and quotidian. They are displayed proudly along the market's m

Buenos Aires, by most accounts, is a city. Those accounts also attach various adjectives to it such as world-class, cosmopolitan, Argentinian. One of the many criteria that I petulantly demand a city check off its scan-tron test sheet is the presence of a set of distinct neighborhoods. A large urban area of any stature should be made up of many little cities worthy of exploration in and of themselves. Buenos Aires is a buzzing honey comb of hoods. And, like any great city, th