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Costs, money and banks
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During the late 1980s Peru's rate of inflation was running at thousands of percent, but President Fujimori's economic shock tactics of the early 1990s brought it fairly tightly under control, so that by 1999 it was below the four percent mark. Devaluation is a regular occurrence, however, and in 1986 the whole currency was changed from the sol (Spanish for sun) to the inti (Quechua for sun) and in the process three zeros were removed - one inti was worth 1000 sols. The inti has since been replaced by the nuevo sol, still called a simple sol on the streets, and whose symbol is S/.
Despite being closely tied to the US dollar, the value of the nuevo sol still varies from day to day, so we have quoted prices throughout this guide in US dollars, against which costs have so far remained relatively stable. At the time of writing, the exchange rate for the nuevo sol was roughly S/3.5=$1, S/2.3=CDN$1 S/5.8=?1, S/2.3=A$1 and S/1.7=NZ$1 Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Peru |