a.k.a. The Hunt for the Green Back! … or Happy Birthday, Bob!
Day 4. Today we join our “tour”. What this means is that the basics of our itinerary are organised for us i.e. transport and accommodation. Perfect for the lazy and/or disorganised … perfect for us!
We knew that we were due to make a not insubstantial payment in US$ on joining the tour … what we didn’t know was that this had to be in cash. Ooops. The next few hours were spent working out:
- How we could physically get our hands on that many American Dollars miles away from the UK where the banks were now closed.
- Do it in such a way that we don’t pay commission through our noses.
Waving a debit card at the lady at the bank didn’t work so we regrouped at Starbucks for a coffee and some inspiration courtesy of the internet. Patti came up with some really helpful suggestions (thanks again Patti). In the end a surprisingly obliging ATM allowed us to rob it by withdrawing six times the maximum amount. As you might imagine, this took quite a while, and as the tower of Mexican pesos grew, the increasingly large queue of people waiting to use the ATM became more and more suspicious. We were expecting an armed traffic warden to come and arrest us!
A dodgy money vendor with a good peso-dollar rate finally solved our problem with enough time to spare to visit the murals of Diego Rivera in the Palacio Nacional where the President of Mexico hangs out.
That evening we met our tour guide, Suzy, and our tour compadres. After Suzy gave us our orientation talk, we handed over our American Dollars with a dead-pan face as though we’d had them for two weeks rather than two hours. Ooops again! We didn’t appreciate that any dollars that were even slightly ripped or marked would be unacceptable as the locals simply won’t take them. One by one each note, front and back, was carefully scrutinsed by Suzy, an experience that was oddly nerve-wracking. Four of our notes were rejected. It was like getting a D at school and having to go to the back of the class. We’ll have to make up the difference later in the trip.
Unacceptable