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Important Information For You About Carrying Cash In Iquitos Peru

This bill has tears, and tape, and can not be spent in Iquitos

Carrying cash should be one part of your plan to get what you want from your Amazon Adventure. You should always have a back up plan, and preferably a back up for a back up plan. So I recommend an ATM card, a credit card and cash. When I say cash, I mean US dollars. Other forms of currency do not work as well here.

Never rely on just a credit card. Things happen. The credit card company might see a charge from South America where there has never been a charge before, and think a thief has taken over your card and to protect you, will cancel your card, even though it was you that made the purchase. That has happened to me, and several other travelers that I know.

ATM cards are great, but have a minimum amount that you can draw per day which may not be enough for some emergency. Other problems that I know from personal experience are they bend, break, expire, and should not be your only option. ATM cards should be part of your overall plan.

Never rely on Travelers Checks. They are good to have for emergency back up, but they are difficult to use in Iquitos. Changing travelers checks into cash in Iquitos involves wasting  time in a bank dealing with extra red tape, for a lower exchange rate.

So that leaves us cash. Here is the important information for you about carrying cash in Iquitos Peru.

Even with cash there are problems to overcome, starting before you leave home. Go inside your bank to a teller and draw out only brand new US Currency. Examine all of the notes carefully, looking for even the tiniest rip, tear, or staple holes. If you find even the smallest flaw, ask the teller to change it to a new crisp perfect bill.

Difficult to spend in Iquitos

Next, examine the serial number on each $100 bill. If the serial number begins with CB…, ask the bank teller to please change to any other serial number except CB…There is an urban legend in Iquitos that all $100 bills with a CB serial number are counterfeit, making them difficult to use.

This bill has a CB serial number, bad enough but it also has tears. Can not be spent in Iquitos.

If the bills have been marked, stamped, stained, or written on; change them for new crisp clean unmarked bills. The very stamps that mean some responsible person in the US checked the bill and determined it was not counterfeit and stamped it, makes it look suspicious to the money changers in Iquitos.

So now you have your fresh off the press cash, your ATM card, a couple of credit cards, and maybe a few Travelers Checks just for more back up insurance. Hopefully you will not need to use the Travelers Checks and you will take them back home with you to use next time.

The next step is to make sure to keep everything safe. I have written more extensively about this in the article, More Than Just A Packing List, and I recommend you follow that link to read the entire article, but let me summarize it here.

• Divide your cash between your wallet, your most secure pockets, a money belt, possibly a waist pack and your carry on luggage.
• Put some cash in regular sized security tinted envelops and hide them in your waist pack or carry on luggage.
• Put some cash and an extra credit card in a zip-lock plastic bag for your money belt to protect against perspiration.
• Carry enough cash to have $300 left over at the end of your trip to get you back home in case of emergency.
• Change at least $100 ($200 would be better), into Soles at the Lima airport. Make sure to get at least half of that in small sole bills and change. There are three or four money exchange stalls at the Lima airport. Use them and you will be better prepared for any emergency with the proper currency in your pocket when you reach your destination.

The US dollars you are carrying can only be used at a few places, such as large hotels, or to pay for a lodge or cruise, so you will want to keep changing to a steady supply of Soles as needed. There are many money changers along Prospero. I can not recommend using them. Some are more honest than others, but they can be tricky.

Difficult to change in Iquitos

I recommend changing your dollars into soles at the Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises office. We call the most honest money changer in Iquitos, he will come to our office within 10 minutes, to change a minimum of $100, and the transaction is done off the street, with an honest man and calculator. I trust him completely.

When our office is closed, use the ATMs to draw out Soles. I use the one on Prospero connected to but outside the Banco de Credito, only a few meters from the Plaza de Armas, but there are several other ATM choices connected to, or outside of the many banks.

Map to the ATM at the Banc de Credito, just a few meters from the Plaza de Armas

The safest, best place on the street to change dollars into soles is catty-corner from the post office, or Serpost, but not after 6:00pm or on Sunday.

A quick rule of thumb is $1 equal S/ 3 soles. That is only approximate, and changes up or down daily, so use a calculator and the correct exchange rate to know exactly how many soles you should receive back. Remember to get around half in small Soles notes and change.

I hope this article provides you with valuable information to make your Amazon Adventure safer and more secure. If you think it does, share this with a friend.

Writing will make it difficult to spend

Important Information For You About Carrying Cash In Iquitos Peru

Bill Grimes, president of Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

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Be Remarkable, Not Mediocre

Me on my remarkable balcony, with my remarkable view. Be remarkable, not mediocre

The white board sign hangs above my computer desk reminds me, Be Remarkable, Not Mediocre. That is not a slogan or a mission statement. It is an achievable goal for me, my businesses, my crew, my blogs, my writing, and for my future.

I have attempted and done a lot in my life. Some of it turned out mediocre. That is how I know for sure it is better to be remarkable. Looking back through my personal history, I accept some of the mediocre results as an inexperienced young man learning about life. I was a little slow to learn, but we are not born experts in every subject. Some mediocre results were caused by a lack of time, focus, or interest.

Now I am a very focused, interested, experienced 63 year old who does not have time to waste on mediocrity. I will not be involved in any more half-assed operations. I would rather be remarkable and fail than be mediocre and just squeak by.

I have been advised I am “over the top”. People coming to Iquitos do not want remarkable. It is too time consuming and expensive to provide remarkable. They would rather pay less for mediocre, and call it remarkable. If that is true, which I doubt, I am here to provide an alternative.

Anyone paying attention to what I am doing can see; Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises, Remarkable, not mediocre. The Amazon Golf Course, Remarkable, not mediocre. Marmelita and our relationship, Remarkable… I am still building the Amazon Explorers Club, it will be Remarkable…

This Captain’s Blog has been a learning experience.  The 200 plus articles run the gauntlet between remarkable and mediocre. I have learned new ways to present information. I changed directions a couple of times. First it was about me. Then I switched to promoting my tours and cruises. Then I discovered search engine optimization and started ranking well for my main search terms and keywords, but that was not remarkable. Next I moved from writing for search engines to writing to provide more valuable information for you. That was an improvement. Lately I have been emphasizing some of my favorite places in Iquitos to encourage new visitors, show the diversity of our charming city, and promote general tourism for everyone.

None of those strategies have been remarkable enough to satisfy me, or probably you. I have a new vision of how the Captain’s Blog can be consistently remarkable. It will take time to implement my vision. Please stay tuned. Come back. The Captain’s Blog is growing up. It will be remarkable.

I am learning new things on the internet and from books. I have new ideas to think about, to improve my style, and ultimately to reinvent myself again. I am careful to commit to the remarkable.

To be remarkable means to be worthy of notice or attention, that you must acknowledge as extraordinary, and pass the word on to people that might be interested. I hope you do me the favor of remarking on my businesses and the Captains Blog to your friends and associates. Thank you.

Be Remarkable, Not Mediocre

Bill Grimes is president of Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

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Gabriel García Márquez, Living To Tell The Tale

Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years Of Solitude, at the Amazon Explorers Club Lounge Library

I first read One Hundred Years of Solitude in the late 70’s. I read it again in the late 80’s. I just finished reading it for the third time after I finished reading in succession all of Gabriel García Márquez novels that have been translated into English, including his autobiography, Living To Tell The Tale. For that collection of writing and work he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Because I am living in Latin America, and am immersed in the culture, I am making a project out of reading the greatest of the Latin American authors. There is a lot to learn from them.

I learned something important from García Márquez. How did he do it? He wrote. First he was a journalist that wrote articles every day with a deadline. When he wrote One Hundred Years Of Solitude he isolated himself in his home office and wrote every day and night for 18 months. When he wrote Living to Tell The Tale his friends never saw him. He wrote. He was a genius, but he wrote.

All of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novels that have been translated into English are available at the Amazon Explorers Club Lounge Library

In Living to Tell The Tale, he explained he only wrote about what he knew. Whether from the stories his grandparents told him as a child or the characters and towns in his personal history, he transferred or transformed them to his novels. He said most writers can not make up believable characters or landscapes. They have to be real characters and places that the author disguises to make them look fictional, and real at the same time.

My favorite García Márquez novel is the The Autumn of the Patriarch. It is written in a unique style. I read many of the sentences over two or three times in amazement. There are pages with no punctuation at all, no commas or periods. I know Mark Twain and William Faulkner are famous for long sentences but I think the record for the longest sentence must go to Gabo, as his friends call him. What is with those wonderful sentences? Only a confident genius could have written those sentences that start out either in the present or the past and end up somewhere completely different several pages later.

The General in his Labyrinth, a partially fictional, partially historical account of the time near the end of  Simón Bolívar’s life, is the second favorite of my friend Gabo’s novels. It is a sad story. Although Simón Bolívar accomplished so much in his life as the liberator, he never accomplished his goal of unifying all of Latin America. No one ever could.

The Amazon Explorers Club Lounge Library

All of Gabriel García Márquez’s novels that have been translated into English are in the library of the Amazon Explorers Club. Find the time, stop on in and read them.

Bill Grimes, Dawn on the Amazon

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Jungle Walk

A guest post by Barry Brett

Waiting for it's prey

Sitting in the Plaza de Armas early one morning I noticed my neighbor’s son Oscar cleaning shoes. He was soon joined by his older brother, Carlos. “We’re trying to scrape-up some money to go visit my Aunt” he said, “She’s expecting a baby any-day now.” I reached into my pocket for some small change to pay for a moto-taxi. “No, no Barry, we can’t get there by taxi. Let’s walk. It’s a nice day.”

Starting-out early in the morning we walked for an hour or so through the city streets. We passed the school where Carlos studied until the money ran-out. Soon we were outside the City and walking through jungle growth. We crossed the Nanay river in a small boat, walked past a few villages until the trees and foliage were thick and difficult to pass. Trails led thru to a small clearing. Carlos swung his machete from side-to-side to clear a path. His brother swung his – wait a minute that’s not a machete! No public restrooms in the jungle!

We reached the clearing. I sensed imminent danger. There it was, directly in front of us. Beckoning us – daring us to approach. Every hiker’s worse nightmare. Snakebite, anybody? No. “The rope-walk.” You know the one I mean. Swaying from side-to-side. The one with those missing planks! I was afraid to look-down. It didn’t matter anyway. I couldn’t see the bottom without my eyeglasses. Reaching for my eyeglasses I missed-my-step. My legs straddling the missing planks, I struggled to hold-on to the rope handles. I could see birds perched on the far-side of the ropeway. Vultures maybe? I glanced upward to see if they were circling above, waiting for their chance. As I put-on my glasses, I looked thru the gap in the planks only to realize I needed a telescope! The chasm resembled a bottomless pit. I tried to think of something positive, like “Tarzan”, “Indy Jones” or a “Parachute!” Carlos grabbed me by the arm and plank-by-plank led me to safety! Standing on safe-ground and wearing my glasses I could see the vultures were nothing more than two brightly colored Macaws. I looked-back across the chasm toward the rope-walkway. Two young boys crossed. They pranced around, laughing and joking as they skipped-over the missing planks, buckets of water balanced on their shoulders!

It was approaching midday and we were getting hungry. Carlos climbed a tree, cutting-down a huge ants’ nest. Thousands of ants scrambled from the mound as it crashed to the ground. Grabbing a few clumps of ants, Carlos placed them in plastic bags. Dinnertime! I tried to imagine what they might taste like. Fried with Yucca, in an omelet, or maybe stuck in peanut butter with a splattering of strawberry jelly! I remembered those horrible chocolate-coated ants in Paris, France. With hindsight they didn’t seem so bad! Plastic bags squirming with ants strapped to their belts, Carlos and his brother walked a half mile or so looking for a house where we might rest and hopefully cook. There it was on the banks of a stream. A wooden shack. An elderly man beckoned us inside and soon Carlos and his brother were preparing lunch. Yes, it was a fry-up, together with Yucca and Platanos (bananas). I tasted a bunch of fried ants. Yes, I could see how some-people might get addicted to them. Maybe the fried ants could be marketed in a bottle and sold at Wall-Marts Pharmacy, on the same shelf as the other laxatives!

We sat-around and talked for a while, then suddenly I had the urge to leave. It was an urgent urge! I raced-over to the hole-in-the-ground, making sure there were no live ants lingering around, waiting their chance to get revenge! Feeling relieved, I returned to the shack to find Carlos standing next to a small boat and carrying a fishing pole. “But there’s Crocs out there and I can‘t swim,” I shouted in Spanglish as we pushed the boat into the creek. Less than five minutes into the trip and there they were. Their dinosauric eyes staring at us as they contemplated a tasty meal. Rocking the boat, Carlos made several brave attempts to navigate the boat around the Crocs. We drifted down river several miles until we reached a small shore-side community. Carlos and Oscar knew exactly where they were, their cousins lived close-by.

After a brief trek down a jungle trail we arrived at the Aunt’s house. She burst into tears as we approached the door. There were hugs and more tears. Carlos is 19, his brother 17. They were 14 and 12 last time they saw their Aunt. It was a baby boy! They talked for a long time, played soccer outside with some neighborhood kids and then we drank a couple of sodas as the Aunt prepared Lunch. It was fish with Platano and Heart-of-the-Palm. Whilst waiting for lunch the Uncle showed me the gaping hole in the roof. Good thing it wasn’t raining. The wind had blown half the roof away during the night. They needed to patch-it-up with leaves from the surrounding trees. After lunch, without the benefit of electricity, radio or television, the family entertained each other by singing and playing zamponya. No electronic games or other distractions. Just a simple pack of cards rounded-off the day’s events.

Afterwards we walked-back down the jungle trail toward the shoreline. On the way we stopped at a small lagoon to look for  giant turtles. Near the shore was a run-down bar, next to a discotheque. Visitors seldom came. This was a big village event as we strolled along the shore. We were a huge hit, as eligible young women in the village rushed-over to the discotheque to meet us. Parading in front of us, the young girls were escorted by their mother or an older sister. But the mothers and older sisters wanted all the action!  They pushed and shoved each other to gain an audience. The better-looking ones were trampled in the rush. “It fits My Lord!” “No it doesn’t, it fits me!!!” We couldn’t stick-around for the clock to strike midnight, we needed to get-away fast. I looked for the Pumpkin Coach but it was missing!

The journey home was difficult. It was getting dark and the mosquitoes seemed to bite harder and more-often than before. With just a flashlight to guide us we wound our way along the croc infested river. Avoiding the rope-walk, we crossed a rickety old bridge. Carlos caught a small fish which he placed in a bag and strapped it around his waste. Finally we arrived back in the City. We went-over to Carlos’s house and he and his younger brother told the good news about the baby boy as they handed Mum the fish. They talked for a while about the trip to his Aunt’s house. As I left I couldn’t help but think how different life is here in the Amazon jungle. People are alive! If this had been California, Carlos’s Mum would just have picked-up the phone. “Hi, how you doing?” “It’s a baby boy!” “Congratulations Honey, say hi to the Dad!” End of a cold, pitiful electronic conversation. No hugs, No tears of joy, No jungle walks, No rope-walks, No crocs to liven-up the trip, No sing-songs with zamponya, No Cinderella-Moment and no exercise! Just a simple two-minute phone-call. But wait a moment, did I say no ANTS? Sign me-up, I think I need a cell-phone!

Jungle Walk

Barry Brett

Barry Brett, has spent three of the past five years here in Iquitos Peru. Growing-up in England, he emigrated to the U.S. as a young man and has lived almost forty years in Huntington Beach, California.

If you enjoy Barry’s style of writing, follow these links to his other articles;

Welcome to Iquitos

Iquitos Water Carnival

Beauty in Death; The Passing Of A Baby Girl

Celebrating the Rebellion Against the Crown

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Long Fung, Our Favorite Chinese Restaurant in Iquitos

Long Fung, our favorite Chinese restaurant in Iquitos Peru

Iquitos has a strong Chinese community and maybe a hundred Chinese restaurants located all over town generically called Chifas. They come and go and everyone has their favorite so I hope you will share yours with us in the comments below. Long Fung has won us over and we eat there once a week, usually Sunday for lunch.

At 1:30 or 2:00pm on Sunday Long Fung is packed so we try to get there around 12:30 or 1:00. They have a great carry out business, and are popular with the Chinese and Peruvian community so take that as a good recommendation because their prices are a little higher than the average Chifa.

Our favorite meal is Parrillada de Huevo de Codorniz for S/19 or around $6.33. It is stir fried chicken, pork, vegetables, quail eggs, and lots of ginger in a delicious sauce. Paired with a big bowl of Chaufa Especial Mesa con Chancho, or stir fried rice with pork for S/11 soles or around $3.60.

The Gallina con Tamarindo is a nice sweet and sour chicken dish for S/15 soles or around $5.

The Caldo de Gallina con Verdura is a simple chicken soup with vegetables and makes a very good light, healthy meal for S/14 or around $4.70

We have tried most of the dishes on the menu, and sometimes experiment. The trouble with experiments is they do not always work. I like most fungus so last Sunday we ordered the dish in the photo, Hongo Especial for S/24 soles or around $8. The fungus is imported dried from China and reconstituted here. Maybe picked fresh it might be better, but, to me it smelled bad, looked bad and did not taste great. I tried to stab the first one with a fork and failed because it was so rubbery. That said, we ate all but one of the fungus and it was not tooooo bad. I will not order that again, and do not recommend it.

The Hongo Especial and the Chaufa Especial Mesa con Chancho

There are no fish dishes on the menu. Also curious is that no Chifa in Iquitos that I know of serves egg rolls or spring rolls. What do you make of that? They all have wan-tans.

Map showing the location of Long Fung.

The address is San Martin #458. Take a motocar to Plaza de 28 Julio for one and a half soles.

What about you? Which is your favorite Chinese restaurant? What is your favorite dish? Let me know. I want to try it to. Have you discovered a Chifa that serves egg rolls in Iquitos? Leave a comment and let us know about your experience with Chinese food in Iquitos. Thanks.

Long Fung, Our Favorite Chinese Restaurant in Iquitos

Bill Grimes, Dawn on the Amazon

To learn about our other favorite restaurants in Iquitos Peru click this link;

Where Will You Eat In Iquitos Peru?

For more in depth reviews of 9 restaurants follow these links;

La Querencia Parrillada For Great Steak in Iquitos

Kikiriki, for Chicken in Iquitos

A Suggestion for Lunch

A Suggestion for Supper

Great Food From the River, Great View of the River, Bucanero, Iquitos Peru

Try One of My Favorite Restaurants in Iquitos Peru, El Mijano

The New La Tullpa, Added to Favorite Restaurant List

Antica, Our Favorite Pizza and Pasta In Iquitos

Kikiriki, Cock-a-doodle-do In Spanish, Get It?

Meet Us At La Noche, One Of My Favorite Restaurants In Iquitos Peru

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