Wild and wonderful tales from the Amazon jungle city of Iquitos, Peru, Almost Close brings this fascinating city to life for the ages, a collection of stories of places, people and events that will thrill and entertain the reader with indepth views of an exotic land and its eccentric and adventurous characters: colourful locals, expatriot residents, and romantic drifters all looking for paradise, having found it in Iquitos, if not forever and for all, then for some and for a while, perhaps not exactly, but almost close. The strangest, funniest, most comprehensive English-language book ever written about the isolated Amazon jungle city of Iquitos, Peru. From stray dogs, vultures, and rats to garbage, sewers, the cemetery, and cremation, it's all here. But wait. There's more Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close looks at orphans living in a world enveloped by witchcraft and a life dominated by evil spirits where people live in shacks atop floating logs or in shakey dwellings perched on high wooden pilings amidst sloshing water-borne disease awash in piranhas, alligators, and anacodas, a place between the traditional selva and modern civilisation, find a starting place for a grand and beautiful future-- for those who survive. Finally, this is the story of Iquitos in our time: a parade of drug-gulping weirdos, wackos, clowns, and crazies who mingle with gun-toting, knife-throwing, beer-drinking bird watchers, men who wear sunglasses at night, and vibrant gals who love them, people who make Iquitos one of the great places to kick back and live it up as life flows ever into the oceanic, everything and all of us flowing headlong and inevitably down the river of time into the great unknown, some taking pause to marry and make this epic journey together. Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close. Here. Now.