July 13, 2010 – 5pm:  Thanks to my best friend I am able to eat tonight!  I ran out of cash over the weekend .  Between the wonderment that is a trip to an ATM in this beautiful city (see previous post) and the mystery enshrouding the use of a particular debit card of mine, I have been unable to secure actual cash in hand.  I have money, I just can’t get to it.  Consequently I have been unable to replenish the few provisions I had secured with the cold hard pesos I had previously held in my hands.  I am literally rationing out a loaf of bread, a bag of rice and taking the extra precaution of boiling tap water for drinking since I’ve run out of bottled water.  Hey, who needs nature survival?  Survive the city, Grizzly Adams!

I have no cell phone here in BsAs.  I had my phone unlocked before I left the States with the intention of purchasing a SIM card and pre-paid calling card when I got here-for local calls only!  I haven’t had a chance to get that going yet and with my current cash flow embargo it’s become a lower priority.  That being the case, however, the only way that I could communicate with the debit card company was to send them an e-mail.  With still no response from them after three days I e-mailed my best friend earlier today and begged her to please find a customer service number to call them and find out if the card could even be used internationally.  After a few hours she e-mailed back to tell me that all systems were a go and that the customer service rep just had to manually reset something so that the card could be used internationally.

Ecstatic and hopeful I headed out to an ATM.  Alas, it was not meant to be.  I have been, however, able to use the card to make a purchase at a local “supermercado” run by a Korean family, albeit with a 40 peso minimum (roughly $10 US).  I am still baffled as to why I cannot use the card to extract cash from an ATM but at least I have food to eat and I can stop boiling tap water.