General Info

[Xxxgoat]

What Gonzo said.

See the thin dude with the glasses at Casite de Cellular, 280 Shell. He can unlock your phone. and put in a chip for a local carrier. I put in a chip for Claro and buy prepaid cards for service when I need them. The calls to none Claro subscribers seem to cost much more than calls to other Claro subscribers or landlines. I'm still trying to figure it out and learned to keep a prepaid card for when the phone runs out, as it seems to do when your talking to a hot chica.

*777 will tell you verbally , in Spanish, the amount of soles left. If you don't understand Spanish any better than me *777# will display the info on the phone. s/15 only gets me about 5 minutes with a non (9-1,2,3,7, +?) Claro call and the chicas like to call back and hangup, expecting you to call them on your nickel, er, sole.

Goat

[Gonzo]

... However in Peru, you can buy an OK new Claro (ex TIM) phone with line for around $30 which uses recharge time cards available everywhere.

I have Cingular at home but didn't want too many complications, and so for my maiden voyage here, I bought a little Claro cell phone. If you're in Miraflores, go to the little shop on Shell a few doors down from the supermarket, 20 meters or so west of Larco. Great guy there, he'll set you up, he even looks like a Latino version of a geek.

Remember *777/Send to show how much time left you have on your cell. Cards are available in most little tiendas, there's a sidewalk vendor on Benavides just south of Calle de la Pizzas.

Also note that not all phone numbers are not the same, apparently, some cost more than others - I was continually surprised how many times I was shut down in my conversations for running out of minutes. Maybe I'm more of a blabbermouth than I think...

[Polvo]

I've done some reserach online but I'm still cloudy about one thing.

I have a motorola razar phone (original model) and one website says I can use the ImeI code without a usb cable then another website says I have to send the phone in because *motorola phones need to be connected to special hardware and software.
I assume cingular would only give me a code which I would have to input once I switch sims but why would a website tell me they need to hook my motorola phone up to hardware/software ? * Is this similar to the warning about polvo azules ?

Cingular will give you a code. They will give you the code in the USA and once you apply it your phone should be unlocked for ever! If you need to go to a third party service PM me, and I will see if I can help you. (My original phone was a Moto and I got the code from Cingular.)

And, yes, I would not send my phone in for someone to connect to a "infinity box".

LB has mentioned that a chip is less than $10...but why he was in a Baltimore 'hood is another story.

Polvo

[Artisttyp]

I've done some reserach online but I'm still cloudy about one thing.

I have a motorola razar phone (original model) and one website says I can use the ImeI code without a usb cable then another website says I have to send the phone in because *motorola phones need to be connected to special hardware and software.
I assume cingular would only give me a code which I would have to input once I switch sims but why would a website tell me they need to hook my motorola phone up to hardware/software ?


* Is this similar to the warning about polvo azules ?

[Lima Busy]

Once the phone is unlocked, get to the country and buy a chip with some minutes and just use the pre-paid cards to top-up. If you have quad band phone you can go with either provider in Peru. If I remember correctly a local chip is about $15.

If you need a number for "serious" normal calls, get two chips. Because if you get a bricheria thinking she has found her own walking, talking, ejaculating ATM she will keep phoning the shit out of you!!! Then losing her is as easy as tossing the chip and changing hotels!

Polvo

Polvo,
I have always had multiple chips(throwaway's) which I learned from the second season of the "Wire". I usually pay S/.30 for a Claro chip.
LB

[Polvo]

..... If you don't get an unlock code, not to worry, just go down to Polvos Auzules (Lima commercial center) and find a booth that will do the unlock for you. Usually costs about 25 soles which is about 8 USD.....
FlyingAce

FlyingAce:

Just to warn the unwary - an unlock code from Polvo Azules or Malvinas is fine. If they start attaching cables, back off! They can wreck the phones' firmware OS - and they won't care a crap! And don't let your phone out of your sight!

Polvo

[Artisttyp]

Polvo - Thanks those were some really helpful tips. I found extactly what I needed to know.
I think I'm going to wait my 30 days since I'm only going away for 2 weeks and who knows who I will want to avoid. If cingular flakes at least I know I have this to fall back on.

Thanks again

[Vaughnyb1]

Thanks for the correction Polvo.

If you look at this GSM website http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_pe.shtml

It says that Claro 1900 mhz and Movistar is 850 mhz.

I have an old phone fromm cinngular which is a dual band 1900 & 850 mhz phone so I assume that this dual band phone will also work.

I believe, and correct me if Im wrong ,the only time you in fact need a quad or tri-band phone is when it doesny support these frequencies.

Correct?

[Vaughnyb1]

In case your wondering, Claro uses 1900 Mhz

Telefonica(Movistar) uses 850 Mhz

Compatible with Cingular and T-Mobil phones ONLY

Vaughn

[Vaughnyb1]

Guys I have taken and learned so much from this forum its time that I give back. During my preparation for my 3-6 month stay in various parts of Peru a cell phone as we all know is essential, but I needed to know the inside info, Can I use my own phone and just add a SIM card? What frequencies do they operate on in Northamerica and South Amerca/ Well here is all the info needed complete with websites referenced etc. Hope this info helps all of us.

Basics
Guidelines for Using a Cellphone Abroad

As a T-Mobile subscriber, Ken Grunski, a businessman in San Diego, knew that his cellphone would work during a trip to Tanzania. What he did not expect was the bill: $800 for 10 days’ use.

“I didn’t think I was going to use my phone that much,” Mr. Grunski said. “But two to three 10-minute calls a day, and it adds up.”

What a shame that Mr. Grunski did not heed his own company’s advice. If he had, he would have saved himself a bundle.

Mr. Grunski owns Telestial, a company that sells SIM cards, small chips that replace those in cellphones sold by T-Mobile and Cingular and lower the costs of calls when overseas.

While his American phone worked abroad without one, Mr. Grunski was paying sky-high rates because he was roaming in a foreign country. T-Mobile charged him $5 a minute to roam in Tanzania.

If Mr. Grunski had used one of the SIM cards he sells, he would have paid $1.15 a minute to call the United States and his calls — averaging 16 minutes a day — would have cost him $184, rather than $800.

While Americans have embraced the convenience of using cellphones, trying to dial from overseas often brings surprises. Even if the phone works, voice mail may not. Depending on the handset, coverage can be spotty. Make the wrong choices, and you may find a huge bill.

The right tactics to avoid those headaches depend on which carrier you use, the length of your trip and your destination.

GSM vs. CDMA

A majority of the world’s cellphone subscribers — 82 percent — use the GSM technology standard, according to the GSM Association. In the United States, the major carriers use two systems. Cingular (now AT&T) and T-Mobile use GSM, while Sprint and Verizon use CDMA, an incompatible technology.

CDMA technology is found in North America, as well as some Asian countries, but it is basically nonexistent in Europe. As a result, Sprint and Verizon customers can use their phones in just 26 countries. (AT&T and T-Mobile customers can potentially use theirs in over a hundred.)

When traveling in non-CDMA countries, Sprint and Verizon customers can rent or purchase GSM phones from those providers. Sprint rents a Motorola Razr for $58 for the first week, and $70 for two weeks, plus $1.29 to $4.99 a minute of airtime. Verizon charges $3.99 a day to rent, plus $1.49 to $4.99 a minute. Verizon also sells three combo CDMA-GSM models, priced from $150 to $600 with a two-year contract.

Cingular and T-Mobile customers have more options — if their existing phones can pick up multiple frequencies. To complicate matters, the American GSM standard operates on 850 and 1,900 megahertz, while the rest of the GSM world uses 900 and 1,800 megahertz.

To use an American GSM cellphone in a foreign country, the handset you own must be tri-band or quad-band and able to operate on one or both of the frequencies used outside the United States. The Cingular and T-Mobile Web sites, as well as Telestial’s and others, list the predominant frequencies used in each country, and show if your phone can operate on one or both overseas bands.

To protect against fraud, American cellphones are typically blocked from making calls when used abroad. Before traveling, call your provider and ask to have that restriction removed.

A Temporary SIM Card

GSM phones use SIM cards (subscriber identity modules), tiny electronic chips that hold a cellphone’s “brains,” including the subscriber’s contact numbers and phone number. (CDMA phones store such information directly in the hardware.)

GSM customers can avoid sky-high roaming charges by replacing their American SIM cards with ones from other countries. For example, travelers to Britain can pick up a SIM card from the British carrier Vodafone; once inserted, it gives the phone a temporary British phone number. Calls within Britain and to the United States would be much cheaper.

For example, T-Mobile charges its customers 99 cents a minute for using their phones in Britain, whether calling a pub in London or your home in New Jersey.

Insert a prepaid British SIM card from a company like Telestial instead, and local calls drop to 26 cents a minute, while calls back to the United States cost 9 to 14 cents a minute.

Another benefit when using overseas SIM cards is that incoming calls are typically free in most countries.

Overseas SIM cards can be purchased before you travel from companies like Cellular Abroad (www.cellularabroad.com) and Telestial (www.telestial.com) or at local shops in foreign countries.

Unlocking the Phone

Even if you have a GSM phone that operates on both overseas frequencies, domestic cellphone providers do not want you to use your phone with another company’s SIM card, because they do not make any money when you do. To prevent your doing so, cellphones bought through Cingular and T-Mobile are electronically locked — they accept only their own company’s SIM cards.

Before you throw your phone off the Eiffel Tower in frustration, know that there are several ways to unlock your phone and avoid those high overseas roaming rates.

Cingular and T-Mobile will unlock their customers’ phones under certain conditions. Cingular will provide unlock codes to customers whose contracts have expired, who have canceled their service and paid an early termination fee, or who have paid a full rather than subsidized price for their phones, according to Rich Blasi, a Cingular Wireless spokesman.

T-Mobile has more lenient policies. It will provide the unlock code to any customer after 90 days of service, but no more than one unlock code will be provided every 90 days, said Graham Crow, a T-Mobile spokesman.

If you do not meet these requirements, you can still get your phone unlocked from a private company. For a few dollars, the Travel Insider (www.thetravelinsider.com) and UnlockTelecom (www.unlocktelecom.co.uk) will provide your phone’s specific unlocking code.

Other GSM Phones

Cellphone customers with dual-band GSM phones that cannot be used overseas can always purchase unlocked quad-band phones from third-party providers. These phones can be used solely when traveling outside the United States. Since they are unlocked, they can also be used instead of your current phone on your American network.

Because the phone is not subsidized by a carrier, the price is higher. For example, an unlocked quad-band Motorola Razr V3 can be bought for $140 from Cellular Blowout (www.cellular-blowout.com). Cellular Abroad and Telestial also sell unlocked phones.

A Few More Tips

When entering numbers in your phone, always add the plus (+) sign and the country code; that way, the number can be dialed automatically no matter from what country you are calling.

Store your GSM phone’s numbers in the phone itself, rather than the SIM card. Then the numbers will still be available to you when you use an overseas SIM card. To transfer them to a new phone easily, store them on a device like Backup-Pal (www.backup-pal.com), an external U.S.B. memory unit.

While you will not pay any charges for incoming calls when you use a foreign SIM card, tell your American callers to get an overseas calling plan from their phone company before you ask them to ring you. If they do not, they could be paying the same sky-high rates that you just avoided.

And if you take your American phone overseas, make sure that its battery charger is dual voltage; without one, all the effort to get your phone to work in other countries may go up in smoke the first time you plug it in.

Saludos Comrades

Vaughn

EDITOR'S NOTE: I certainly hope that the author or somebody else will post a link to this report in the Reports of Distinction thread. Please Click Here for more information.

[Polvo]

Midwest33,

I will let the in-country experts guide you on this but in my humble opinion- and provided that you are judicious- $2,500-$3,000 per month is more than enough to live on in Lima. ..........I may be full of shit but those are my impressions garnered from multiple business trips to both Lima and Buenos Aires.

Cat:

There is a good guide to foreign living costs published on the US Dept of State web site http://www.state.gov/m/a/als/prdm/

This matrix must be looked upon as for virginal, pasty white gringos travelling to strange foreign places but I have found the "ratios" between countries to be hellishly accurate. For instance it suggests that per diem living (meals and incidentals) is 30% cheaper in BA than Lima. If one sticks to the gringo encounters this is probably true - if you don't then Peru "menu's" score big time. (It also has Lima as 20% cheaper than Mexico City.)

If you prefer whites - then BA is for you. If you pefer exotics (dwarfs, toothless wonders, charapita's, chinita's and the occassional chola) then Peru is for you.

Apartment costs in both places are about the same. The Argentinian economy is due for its 10 yearly collapse (the dollar will reign supreme) but Peru's economy is marching on. And, sadly, I predict orifice encounters will become more expensive - whether it is a meal or an immediate main course.

Regards

Polvo

[TheCatsMeow88]

I already have a woman lawyer friend in peru, so that tilts me towards towards Lima. But, I read online that Argentina has a better female/male ratio than Peru.

Also, I have an internet business I need to run. I think that Argentina has better connectivity, more choices for cell phones, etc, than Peru.

What's better, Lima or Buenos Aires?

Finally, I am 33 years old. I have about 30K in the bank, and a website generating about 2,500-3,000 a month. Is that enough to live on?

Thanks

Midwest33,

I will let the in-country experts guide you on this but in my humble opinion- and provided that you are judicious- $2,500-$3,000 per month is more than enough to live on in Lima. Clearly, you will not be blowing $100 per night on babes and partying but the good news is that you will not need to. Accomodation is much cheaper than the US, food is also cheaper and tastes much better. Taxis are inexpensive; 3-5 soles to get around Miraflores and 10-15 soles to get you everywhere you are likely to want to go in Lima. Mind you, taxis are ridiculously inexpensive in Bs. As. also.

I do not know your personal lifestyle but of on that budget you will have to be judicious regarding discretionary spending on booze, partying and chicas, wherever you decide to settle. That said, there are so many freebie opportunites in Lima that once you are settled, you will be getting free pussy most of the time (Provided, of course, that you have some game).

Again, just MHO and YMMV.

The Cat

PS One more thought. There is more diversity in Bs. As. because of the large amount of immigration from European countries in years past. Something like 40% of Argentinians have Italian blood in them. As a result, Bs. As. chicas definitely have a more European flavor to them compared to the more native look of Peruvians. I found this to be a two edged sword. There are some really breathtaking beauties in Bs. As. that you just will not see, or will see far less frequently, in Peru. On the other hand, the Argentinian women I met acted more like European women and were less approachable. You will not have that problem with most chicas in Lima.

P4P is freely available at reasonable prices in both cities.

I may be full of shit but those are my impressions garnered from multiple business trips to both Lima and Buenos Aires.

[Midwest33]

I already have a woman lawyer friend in peru, so that tilts me towards towards Lima. But, I read online that Argentina has a better female/male ratio than Peru.

Also, I have an internet business I need to run. I think that Argentina has better connectivity, more choices for cell phones, etc, than Peru.

What's better, Lima or Buenos Aires?

Finally, I am 33 years old. I have about 30K in the bank, and a website generating about 2,500-3,000 a month. Is that enough to live on?

Thanks

[TheCatsMeow88]

on the plane.

US Dollars are accepted almost everywhere and I use USD almost exclusively when dealing with the chicas (though I have also been known to throw a few Euros their way). I usually change some money to soles because it pisses me off to pay USD 5 for a 5-10 soles cab ride. The same thing applies to meals, 3 soles shoe shines in Parque Kennedy, toothpaste and other miscellaneous expenses. The alternative of carrying alot of single dollar notes down to Lima does not appeal to me. It is not a question of being cheap; it is just a question of not throwing money away, however small the amount.

Speaking of 3 soles shoe shines, I really enjoy discovering little arbitrage opportunities. The same shoe shine costs $4 ($3 + $1 tip) at Newark and most other US airports! I once had a 3 soles shoe shine in San Borja that lasted 25-30 minutes. It makes you wonder how much does that guy makes in a day and how does he survive on it.

The Cat

Here is something a little different for my 100th post.

All,

Speaking of arbitrage opportunities, business travellers interested in tailored (custom made) shirts should look into Len Rodridge, a bespoke shirtmaker located in San Borja.

Do not be fooled by the name, this is a small family-run Peruvian tailoring business. I purchased three shirts from the San Borja shop on one of my trips to Lima about a year ago and remain a satisfied customer. As you might expect, they have a wonderful array of materials available and you choose color, type of collar and whether you want buttons on the cuffs.

I was measured in the morning and the shirts were delivered to my hotel that same evening. Cost per shirt: $45. Similar quality off-the-shelf shirts cost $80 at Nordstroms in the US. I have not priced tailor made shirts in the US but I imagine we are talking upwards of $100 per shirt for similar quality and workmanship.

I do not have the exact address but the way to find the shop is to ask the driver to take you to the following address:

Banos Turkos
Calle Ucello 260-104
San Borga (Centro Comercial)
Al costado de Wong (Supermercado)

The shirtmaker is directly opposite the Banos Turcos.

The Banos Turcos, by the way, is a "no-extras" operation. I went for the blind male masseurs who provide an excellent massage.

The Cat

[Dirty Willy]

My advice for a three day trip would be to pick someplace that has a few trips to do from that town. Pisco might be that place. If I remember correctly you can do las islas and the lines (ica) from there. Please verify that info.

Artisttyp

You do line up the tour tour to Islas Ballenas from Ica according to my book.

Does anyone have recommendations/reservations in terms of hiring a driver/taxi? Or renting a car?

I think Ica is only 3-4 hours away and Pisco another hour or so, so I think this would be very feasable as a 3 day trip.