DAY 8
CUSCO (Lima, PER) to BUENOS AIRES (Buenos Aires, ARG)
via LIMA (Lima, PER)
Tuesday September 16th, 2014
TODAYS MILEAGE – 2349 miles or 3780 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 13134 miles or 21137 kilometres
It was another 6AM start to catch Avianca flight AV836 to Lima (Peru). From there, we were on LAN flight LA2425 that landed at 10:30 that evening. By the time we got into our hotel, the Dazzler Tower San Telmo, it was nearly 11PM.
Just to make things interesting, a couple of us decided to head down to Avenue Florida in search of a street cambio (money changer) to take advantage of the "dollar blue" money rate.
The official Government Bank Rate was 8.5 Argentine Pesos to $1.00 USD. By using a local, who can tell the counterfit pesos from the real notes, we changed $2500.00 USD for 33750.00 Argentine Pesos.
As using street cambios is illegal in Argentina, we ended up in a back alley, checking pesos like some kind of drug dealer/junkie score - very surreal! At the end of the day, we netted and extra 12500.00 Argentine Pesos by simply asking a local and going for a walk.
A word of warning, our local said that if cuaght by the Police, they may take all your cash and arrest you, that's if you don't get ripped off by getting a heap of funny money.
But what's a holiday without stepping out of your comfort zone ..... 
Just in case you are interested, I've broken down the flight times and distances in getting over there:
∗ CUSCO (Lima, PER) to LIMA (Lima, PER)
364 miles or 586 kilometres
• Flight Time: 1 hours 11 minutes
∗ LIMA (Lima, PER) to BUENOS AIRES (Buenos Aires, ARG)
1961 miles or 3157 kilometres
• Flight Time: 4 hours 13 minutes
19 miles or 31 kilometres
• Travel Time: 35 minutes