Friday March 4th-

Last night I took the students to a discotheque that Malena (of the Spanish school) told me was hip with all the young’uns in Arequipa. The students reported a much higher incidence of balding middle-aged men. Ha! Too bad.

Today everyone packed up and moved out of their homestays and (staff) hostel in preparation for our night bus to Cusco. We did internet’ing and last-minute city exploring. Julie and Ingmar took Benji, who’s been dying for a good climb, to the lock rock gym, the Cuerva del Mono (¡que divertido!):

Unfortunately, Benji’s luck took a turn for the worse at the bus station. He left his camera out on a chair and a team of four female thieves distracted him (and the rest of group) while one of them “bumped into” the chair and grabbed the camera. (I wasn’t there—this is the story I got.)

Benji was thankful that this happened near the end of the trip. The camera was covered by traveler’s insurance, but there was no tourist police to file a report in the bus station, and police from one district (i.e. Cusco) won’t create a report for a crime that happened in another (i.e. Arequipa), so Benji is SOL in terms of getting compensated. Bummer!