Arequipa Again

March 21, 2017

P1120713 After hiking in Colca Canyon, we took a rest day in Arequipa, which was wonderful. We slept in, caught up on journaling/blogging, and took advantage of the fancy food Arequipa had to offer with tasty hot chocolate (but not as good as Chocolat Vitale’s), and a wonderful mango tort. After that I was all ready to catch the 5:15am bus to Cusco. (That’s a lie. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to catch a 5:15am bus, but I can make myself do it most days.)

P1120711 There is/was apparently quite a problem with counterfeit money in Peru, so when you pay the vendor will almost always examine the bills, some more closely than others. The pastry place took this to the extreme, examining our 100 sole bill (the ones you get out of the ATM, about USD 33) for a solid minute. The examination included looking at the bill, looking with a magnifying glass, using a (presumably) UV pen, and comparing it against a (presumably known good) bill. Our bill passed all the tests. I don’t know what we’d do if we ended up with a counterfeit bill. Probably just chalk it up to experience and throw it out. (I’ve seen some signs that imply counterfeit bills will be confiscated.)

More Arequipa pictures

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Living the good life in Seattle, occasionally sharing something interesting with the Internet.