PERU TRAVEL PLANNER

Peru telephones

With a little patience you can make international calls from just about any town in the country. In recent years the telephone system has dramatically improved, partly due to being taken over by a Spanish telephone company and partly because of modernization and an increasing use of satellites.

All Peruvian towns have a Teléfonica del Peru office, which offers an operator service; give the receptionist your destination number and they will allocate you to a numbered phone booth when your call is put through (you pay afterwards). These offices also have phones taking cards. In Lima, the central Teléfonica del Peru office is often crowded, so a better option is to phone from your hotel or from the street telephone kiosks .

All phone kiosks are operated by coins or tarjetas telefonicas - phone cards - which are available in a variety of denominations, and nuevo sol coins. You can buy phone cards from corner shops, farmacias or on the street from cigarette stalls in the centres of most towns and cities. There are currently two phone outfits, Telefonica del Peru and Telepoint, each of whom produce their own cards for use in their phones only.

You should be able to make direct, international calls without much problem from anywhere in Peru, but if you need to contact the international operator , dial 108. Collect calls are known either simply as collect or al cobro revertido and are fairly straightforward. Calls are cheaper at night. Most shops, restaurants or corner shops in Peru have a phone available for public use, which you can use for calls within Peru only.