La Danza del Petrolero

Smithsonian Folklife notes credit Isaías Emerson Sánchez, date it around 1970 and tie it to the oil boom that changed Iquitos and the Amazon; Remezcla says it was written in the late 1960s, as an ode to petroleum workers naming neighbors Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, and that Los Mirlos recorded a much more famous cover several years after the original. Afropop's review of The Roots of Chicha 2 says it marries cumbia with psychedelic guitar, with references to country-western and surf, and that the singer narrates a dance for oil dealers and the bitter blessing of their wealth.

Remezcla's 2016 mini-documentary shows an updated version recorded in an informal living-room session in Iquitos with Dengue Dengue Dengue, using a Native Instruments Maschine in place of the original percussion, with Jair Sánchez comparing the versions. A video of the band playing it in Iquitos was posted by Sounds and Colours in July 2011, and they played it at Pioneer Works in 2015. It is also on The Roots of Chicha 2 and on Selva (2025). We do not know which version our upload is.