Curahuasi has made it into the 21st Century

Something small at the village entrance sets hearts racing

You are about to enter a pizzeria to enjoy a meal with your family and you quickly check the finances in your wallet.  Your heart sinks, when you find only coins.  You know full well that your secret cash stash under your mattress has already been “used wisely” and that your wife’s secret emergency nest egg hatched a while back.  Your children’s faces are looking at you with the expression, “Daddy, why aren’t we going in?  We are starving!”  What should you do?

Previously unseen and unheard of.

You have three options: (1) You can drive over the 4,000m high mountain pass to Abancay in order to draw cash from the cash machine.  The time needed would be three hours, if everything goes to plan; (2) You travel to Cusco and combine your raiding the bank with a shopping spree after which your freezer will be bulging.  The round trip would take you at least seven hours, if the national road is not blocked by road-works; or (3) you immediately start a diet and try to distract your hungry children by reading them an exciting story.  But the book would have to be very exciting, since children’s concentration spans, throwing empty stomachs into the equation, are miniscule.

Six years ago we tried to convince the Banco de Crédito Banking Group of the need of installing a cash machine in Curahuasi.  In vain.  But this week the miracle happened: one of its competitors, Caja Cusco, installed the desired machine at the village entrance.

The inhabitant’s enthusiasm knows no bounds.  Now Curahuasi can enjoy the same service as provided in London Downtown or in Frankfurt’s banking district.  Simply fantastic! The first of its species ever seen in this mountain village.

The next time you are standing at a cash machine, we would ask you to observe a minute’s silence, irrespective of how long the queue behind you is.

An incredible relief.

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