Guadalajara’s Expo Ganadero, an annual livestock fair and competition running from October 5 to November 2, is for the first-time attendee a bewildering overload of several of the cardinal senses. First and foremost is smell: the Aegean stables have nothing on the effluvia that is constantly being emitted by the fair’s furry, feathered or otherwise clad captive organisms. Sound came in second, with the grunt and lo of cattle, blaring banda music and yowling children creating

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.