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Happy Thanksgiving to my North American friends.

This Thanksgiving day millions of North Americans will eat turkey, but here in Iquitos Peru, Marmelita, my son Matt, and I will eat young goat, cooked in the oven, with goat gravy and tacu-tacu, one of my favorite meals in Iquitos. Of course not all goat meals are created equal. The Huaralino restaurant serves the best goat meal I know of, and that is where we will be thankful today.

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, November 29th, we’re fixin’ up a big traditional Thanksgiving Dinner of turkey, noodles, dressing, roasted potatoes, fried Paddy Straw Mushrooms, (Ok your right, that’s not traditional) for 90 to 100 people at the Amazon Golf Course Clubhouse. You are invited. If you will be in Iquitos, consider yourself family, and plan to join us for a delicious meal.

The New York Times reported today that 765,000 people had searched turkey recipes at allrecipes.com. For most of the day before Thanksgiving the site was handling one million page views per hour, including 100,000 searches for mashed potato recipes, and the most searched for term of all, “sweet potato casserole”. Cooks all over the United States were nervous today about cooking a memorable feast for family and friends.

The first of this week I was feeling nervous myself about cooking a big meal for over 100 hungry people but as we have gotten more and more organized I am not nervous now. We have an idea for our portions per guest and a plan for the cooking. We have six 5 kilo turkeys, seven kilos of pollenta for the cornbread dressing, 7 kilos of dried egg noodles and 40 large potatoes. We will make a rich broth from chicken wings on Friday, refrigerate it, skim off the fat Saturday, use part of the broth to moisten Grannies Southern Corn Bread Dressing that we will recreate on Saturday, then refrigerate, and warm up in the oven on Sunday. We have borrowed refrigerator space from family and friends for broth, turkeys, and dressing. We have rented a large oven to cook the turkeys and potatoes. Most of the broth will be used to cook the noodles Sunday morning.

We will get up at 4:00am to prepare the turkeys to start cooking around 6:00am. We will put two apples, two onions, a bulb of garlic, and a big chunk of ginger in each turkey to add flavor and moisture during the roasting process, and roast the potatoes in the same pans with the turkeys. Jeremiah will fry the mushrooms at the Amazon Golf Course Sunday starting around 11:30. We plan to start serving the meal at noon. That’s the plan. We have three great cooks, a great organizer, and me, working to turn the plan into action. I expect this will be a meal like Grannie taught me, and an event you will remember next year.

Happy Thanksgiving to my North American friends

Bill Grimes is president of Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises, and manager of the Amazon Golf Course.

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Matthew David Grimes, the artist, my son, has returned to Iquitos.

It doesn’t  get much better than when family or friends come to visit me in Iquitos. I’m happy my son Matt is back for his 4th visit and he is happy to be here again. All together Matt has lived for over a year in Iquitos. He knows his way around, and has made several friends. By tomorrow I expect he will walk to the Belen market and we will be drinking fresh squeezed camu-camu juice. I hope so…

Matt is a talented artist, sculpture, carver, and blogger, among other disciplines. While he was gone, we accumulated a big sack full of tagua nuts and two other sacks full of pieces of tropical hardwoods and saved them in our storage room. When he arrived and discovered those sacks of treasure, he immediately began to unpack his chisels and knives. You can see some of his work at this link; Carving Tagua Nuts, The Vegetable Ivory; and at The Matthew Grimes Blog.

Bill Grimes is president of Dawn on the Amazon.

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The Population Of The Province Of Maynas, and Iquitos According To The latest Census

I am typing from the official 2007 census;

• Provincia Maynas, total population, 486,072…Urban, 386,891…Rural, 99,181

That includes;

• Distrito Iquitos, 156,904…Urban, 153,517…Rural, 3,387
• Distrito Alto Nanay, 2,566…Urban, 803…Rural, 1763
• Distrito Fernando Lores, 19,002…Urban, 4,515…Rural, 14,487
• Distrito Indiana, 12,041,…Urban, 3,275….Rural, 8,766
• Distrito Las Amazonas, 10,266…Urban, 2,498…Rural, 7,768
• Distrito Mazan, 13,050…Urban, 3,592…Rural, 9,458
• Distrito Napo, 14,326…Urban, 2,454…Rural, 11,872
• Distrito Punchana, 75,595…Urban, 68,471…Rural, 7,124
• Distrito Putumayo, 4,953…Urban, 2,533…Rural, 2,420
• Distrito Torres Causana, 4,546…Urban, 345…Rural, 4,201
• Distrito Belen, 67,790…Urban, 56,808…Rural, 10,982
• Distrito San Juan Bautista, 101,558…Urban, 87,676…Rural, 13,882
• Distrito Teniente Manuel Clavero, 3,475…Urban, 404…Rural 3,071
• Total = 486,072

Combine the populations of the district of Iquitos with the districts of the suburbs of Punchana, Belen, and San Juan, in other words “Greatest Iquitos” and the population is 401,847.

Combine the urban population of the cities of Iquitos, Punchana, Belen, and San Juan, in other words, “Greater Iquitos” and the population is 366,472

Population Of Iquitos According To The Latest Census

Bill Grimes is president of Dawn on the Amazon.

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Everyone Is Invited To Celebrate Thanksgiving On November 29 At The Amazon Golf Course

This is your invitation to celebrate thanksgiving at the Amazon Golf Course

This is your invitation to celebrate Thanksgiving at the Amazon Golf Course on the last Sunday of November. That is not Thanksgiving Day! Plan on being there for a delicious meal and a good time on November 29th. I know Thanksgiving is not widely celebrated outside of North America, but everyone, regardless of nationality, is invited to join us. The only requirements are that you purchase a ticket for $15 soles, preferably in advance so we will know how many meals to prepare, that you be thankful, and have fun.

The view of the Amazon Golf Course from the observation deck of the clubhouse

The meal will be roasted turkey or chicken, noodles, and dressing like grandma used to make for when our family got together. I sure miss those grand meals and gatherings, so we will have our own. Show up any time from 10:00am till late afternoon. We will start serving food around noon. Bring your family and friends to spend a great day with us. We are looking forward to being thankful with you at the Amazon Golf Course.

Bring your family and friends to the Amazon Golf Course to celebrate thanksgiving

The day is not just about stuffing yourself with too much food. If you purchase a ticket for the thanksgiving lunch for S/15 soles, you could play golf all day if you want to. There will be lots of competitive volleyball and soccer, or you can hang out and be comfortable in the hammocks or in chairs playing cards in the shade, relaxing, visiting, partying, and drinking cold frosty beer or soda pop.

The Amazon Golf Course is a good place to hang in a hammock in the shade and drink a cold frosty beer or soda

All profits will go to fund improvements to The Amazon Golf Course. Thank you so much in advance for helping with that important project. Everyone wins.

Map showing how to get to the Amazon Golf Course

This map shows how to get to the Amazon Golf Course. See you there.

Everyone Is Invited To Celebrate Thanksgiving On Novmber 29th At The Amazon Golf Course

Bill Grimes is President of Dawn on the Amazon, manager of the Amazon Golf Course, and blogger at The Amazon Golf Course Blog, among many other things…

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Greetings From Bill Grimes On The Captain’s Blog

Please accept my apology for any inconvenience caused if you were having trouble accessing the Captain’s Blog. Hooray, it is fixed, and functioning better than ever. Thank you for your patience.

I received numerous emails, phone calls, and face to face conversations wanting to know what was wrong. I explained it was like an electrical short, sometime the wires were touching and the spark would open the blog and frequently it would short out and off. It took me three days to make the post, Golfing Amazon Style, From The Fringe. Ohhh, it was frustrating.

We discovered the problem was connected to upgrading to WordPress 2.8. Some plugins were not compatible. The upgrade caused more trouble than it was worth, one of those cases where “If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.”

The worst consequence was the Captain’s Blog went from over 600 views per day to around 200 views for 11 days. Yesterday and the day before, since the repair was successful we got back up to 300 views. Hopefully in the near future, if I post more valuable content, I will earn back most of my loyal readers.

The Captain’s Blog is a unique source of independent information for tourists and ex-pats, about Iquitos, (with hotel and restaurant reviews), over 200 articles about the reserves, rivers, and rainforest, recommended tours and cruises, and an insight of what you can see and do in and around our charming river port city.

Thank you for your continued support. You are my most valuable asset and the reason the Captain’s Blog exists.

Warmest regards

Bill

Greetings From Bill Grimes On The Captain’s Blog

Bill Grimes is president of Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises, and manager of the Amazon Golf Course

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