Minimal packing and international postage

We'd been carrying around way too much stuff for too long, so after coming back to Lima from the altiplano we decided to take a box of extra stuff to Serpost and send it to Singapore. The process of Marie Kondo-ing in order to stay inside a 23 kg baggage allowance isn't terribly interesting (the Maasai blanket does bring joy, but it's also very bulky and weighs a fair bit, so into the box it goes). Before I forget, though, here are some things that may be useful to anybody trying to post things in Peru:

• Check when the post office closes for lunch. Alternatively, make sure you are going to a post office near tasty restaurants.
• Don't seal the package before you take it to the post office, as the staff have to go through everything individually to check that you're not sending anything that isn't allowed. They will lend you a blunt table knife to help you back into your package, but taping it back up afterwards is definitely your problem.
• Spices are prohibited. Salt is fine, though, and knitting needles will confuse your friendly post office employee and make them laugh nervously.
• It appears that it's cheaper to send just over 2 kg than it is to send just less than 2 kg: around 165 soles vs 200 soles. The price per kg goes down as you send more: we sent just over 6 kg for 270 soles. [10 soles is about 4 SGD or 3 USD - parenthetically, there are lots of bureaux de change here, and the spreads are tight: the USDPEN bid/offer is typically 3.32/3.34. Nothing like those vultures at Gatwick.]
  
• Take a photocopy of your passport: you'll have to sign it and put a thumbprint on it. We were lucky in that our post office was just round the corner from an Internet cafe that did photocopies for 0.1 sol a pop, but this could have been a problem.
  
• There are about a dozen pieces of paper that need signing and thumbprinting. Wet wipes may be useful afterwards. Of course you weren't going to wear anything white or easily stained while walking around Lima with a big box, were you.
  
• You will get a tracking number, but it appears to be impossible to use it without going through a complicated process of setting up an account on Serpost's shonky website. Tracking information isn't shared with any of the usual international shipping tracking places, so it appears that the best thing to do is either to befriend a Peruvian with their own Serpost account or to wait a few weeks and hope it shows up on Singpost. We were quoted a month for our package to get to Singapore - I'll update this when I have more information.