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.)
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.)
