Exchange money in Ayachucho

2008年3月27日 星期四

Day 6 3/24 Ayacucho -> Cuzco

The first thing we needed to do today was to change money as we didn´t have enough soles to buy bus tickets. We changed some yesterday with the owner, but dare not to bother her again. There is a bank just in front of our hotel. But they don´t provide exchange service. They said: to the national bank. Luckily, Jacqui did show us where it is yesterady, so it didn´t take much time to look for it.


Before we got into the bank, we saw a long que on the street around the bank. I guessed it was for ATM or something. But I was totally wrong, the que was extenting from the bank. I asked a guard about the place to change money, (People were laughing when they heard my poor spainsh) he pointed the line and showed the meaning that you need to que...(people were laughing again...@@). We couldn´t believe this and couldn´t understand what happened here. People were so eager to withdraw money from the bank or somthing?? totally no idea.



So we were back to our good frinds, the hotel owner and the manager. The manger was trying to say that we should change money somewhere, so we kept saying the bank is full of people. Just too many people. Finally the owner showed up and said ok to let us change money in the hotel. We so love her.

We didn´t know why but the manager went out after confirming the money we needed. We thought they didn´t have enought soles in the hotel at that moment. (That was a silly idea i know) Few minutes later, we got soles and finally could buy the bus tickets to Cuzco tonight. Happy again.

The manager and the owner can only Spanish. After two days communication, we could almost understand each other via body language and unspoken consensus. That gave us strong spirit and believe we won´t have any problems in S. America. *___*

Getting enough money, we headed for the bus station to buy tickets. We walked down the stree and turned left to a walking path which we had pasted lots of time. And just found out with surprise that there are sooooo many money exchange stands over there.

We just suddently realised the fact that yesterday when we said to Daniel and Jacqui that we didn´t have enough soles, they just kept saying the shops didn´t close on sunday. At that time, we just though of bank, and didn´t have 2nd thought about money exchange. And we also just realised that the manager was trying to tell us we could change money in these places, not the bank. In the end, he came here to change money for us. We are so grateful to these things and learn more about these little things now.



We were thinking to buy the tickets for 7:00 pm one, however, the last two seats were purchased at the same time when were asking. So we changed the bus to depart at 6:40 pm.

We were a bit worried about that we couldn´t say goodbye to Daniel then, as we said we would meet around 6:30 pm in the bus station. We just couldn´t do anything.

As to the journey, it would take about 24 hours to Cuzco. I heard it is tough, but no idea how tought it would be at that time. Let´s see.

Travel: By Los Chankas, 65 soles per person (Journey is Ayacucho-Andahuaylas(change bus)-Cuzco), takes about 24 hours.


To be continued.....
.

M.