The Money Saga

Our ship has not come in so we will be in Cartagena longer than expected.  One must not plan on the expected.  But that's O.K.  The people we have met have been most welcoming and helpful.  I will give you an example.  We went in serch of a Bank yesterday to exchange money.  The money here is a bit confusing.  10,000pesos equal $5.62.  We found a bank but it was closed for lunch till 2P.M.  Bill visits ATM machine and draws out thousands of pesos and we decide to go to lunch .  The menu was all in Spanish so our meal was a SURPRISE and a good one.  Very few people speak english.  We enjoyed our meal and then came time to pay.  Our thousands were not enough.  Turns out it takes 3,000 to buy a bottle of water..  So we try credit cards and none of them will work.  By that time it is almost2PM so I leave Bill as a hostage and go to the Bank to exchange dollars.  There were about 20 people waiting for the bank to open and when it FINALLY did the guard says No Money--No Exchange.  A nice lady told me you have to exchange money at a money exchange place.  So I go back to the restrurant expecting Bill to be washing dishes.  Instead they had felt sorry for him and he was eating a free dessert.  Then the food part.  The owner came in and he could speak english.  He was very interested in how we were traveling and where we were going.  He took our dollars for payment apologizing all the whle about giving us a bad exchange rate.  Turned out to be a good experience.  Later on we went with Norman who found a money changer in an internet cafe and we are now multi-millionaires. 
So we live and learn and that's what travel is all about.
Gerry
Bill