Friday, October 2, 2009

Help! I have no money and I am in a foreign country!!








(Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo)-




Mexico hurries for no one and those who aren´t used to a slower pace of life are in for a huge disappointment. This "hasta manana" attitude is common throughout Mexico - especially as you go south of Mexico City.


The aftermath of the theft I experienced in Palenque, Chiapas ranged from the positive to the unexpected. Of course we always remember the negative and draining outcomes unless we decide to reframe the experience as an adventure. Recovering my atm card took all the patience, sweat, and the fighting back of tears I could muster.


On Friday, September 18 th, I communicated from a caseta telefonica to my bank about mailing out a replacement atm card to a shipping company in Palenque. Human error on the part of my bank and the bureaucratic idiocy of UPS Mexico were the principal factors in my 5 days of needless anguish and sheer anxiety.



After returning from a blissful tour of Guatemala I soon realized that the package containing my atm card had been lost and I was soon burning through the money my sister had wired me about a week before. This realization and the subsequent discomfort were quickly souring me and ruining my Mexican vacation.


Over a period of 5 days, I frantically set about making phone calls to both Washington Mutual and UPS Mexico. I was frustruated throughout this ordeal by the abundant misinformation I received from both the US and Mexico. The constant failure of Mexican phone lines which resulted in many dropped calls to my bank in the states did not help to speed up the process of retrieving my atm card (which was now lost somewhere in Mexico!!)
Finally, after running low on cash I went down to the Palenque police station and tearfully told them that I needed to use their public phone because I was a foreigner whose resources were about dwindle. Unsympathetically I was told by the police officer on duty that people were robbed everywhere. I ignored the officers' unkind behavior and insisted on using their phone. Land lines are not common throughout Mexico and you have to pay to make phone calls either in a caseta or from a public phone and there is often interference from frustruatingly noisy city streets.

In the meantime, UPS Mexico was very bureaucratic and had strict operating times and varied in the misinformation they gave me from day to day - on one day I was told the card would be delivered the next day and then several days later that the card was en route back to the US. After hearing this last bit of news, I hit a wall. I cried, I prayed and wondered what kind of lesson I was supposed to be learning from all of this. I thought of The Secret and wondered if my negative thinking had spawned this process. I called UPS again and got a kinder customer service agent who told me where and how i could pick up the package. I took a bus to Villahermosa, Tabasco which is anything but beautiful. I picked up my atm card. I called my bank and another dose of human error led to more frustruation on my part. The customer service agent who answered informed me that my atm card was now cancelled. Again I blamed myself and all of my negative thinking. What else could go wrong, I wondered? I was deeply saddened.
Finally, I decided that I had to let this issue go for awhile. I booked a second-class bus to Playa Del Carmen in the Mayan Riviera. I love the beach and I was instantly soothed by the natural beauty and the calmness of this town. I took a deep breath and called my bank again and amazingly I was told that my atm card had not been cancelled and that I had simply been misinformed!!!



I did not even have the energy to get upset. I had acces to money again. Life was good once more and I could go back and resume my tourist behavior and let go of my crazy anxiety-filled mode of the past 5 days. Thank you friends and family who loaned me or sent me wire transfers during this crazy time.


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