Not a great day.

March 1st Monday
Not the best of days.
Today we had to go to Navojoa for a Dr’s appointment for Joey. Just a checkup from his favorite doctor; Dr Gallegos and to get some pesos at the ATM as well as some groceries.
Yes, there is an ATM in Alamos but the exchange rate is way lower in Alamos & the grocery stores here have higher prices & don’t have as great a selection as in Navojoa. Yes, it IS 35 miles one way but the Dr appointment gave us the opportunity to kill all those birds with one trip. We wouldn’t make that 70 mile round trip just for some better deals on groceries & exchange rates.

BTW gasoline here after the Liter conversion is about $2.41 per gallon.

We badly were in the need of pesos too so we went to the bank that offered the best exchange rate. Today it was Santander a Spanish headquarted bank.

Most of the banks limit the peso withdrawal to 5000 pesos per day (about $350 usd @ today’s rate) but I’d remembered that at one bank last year I was able to get 9000 pesos. I couldn’t remember WHICH bank allowed that. The point is to take out as much as you can in one transaction in order to only pay for one transaction/service fee.

I started with asking for 11,000 pesos (hey, it’s worth a try) & the screen told me…nope , then I tried , 10k then 9k, then 8k…all .”nope”. Finally when I got to 7,000 pesos it said OK
. After a few seconds the screen said Transaction Complete,. Take your receipt, Take your card, Take your money”
Well, we took the first two but after some normal clunking sounds of the machine….no money came out of it’s mouth…we waited a bit longer….nothing. I stood by the machine while Joey went inside to get a manager. He came out to join me at the ATM . He asked me to try again, which I was reluctant to do because I already had a receipt that showed I had actually gotten my 7,000pesos & certainly didn’t wish to have another deduction from my account. He talked me into it & this time it was rejected.

He told me he & his bank could do nothing about what happened and that I needed to contact MY bank. Oh great! I tried to insist that Santander’s receipt to me showed that they have given me this amount & they have NOT.
No matter what I said, his tune did not change.

We were very hungry at that point & hadn’t eaten breakfast so we went across the plaza from the bank & ate a new Italian restaurant, Amore.

Then finished our shopping & drove back to Alamos where I got online & called my bank using MagicJack. The department I needed to speak with was already closed so the agent made notes as to what happened so it could be noted that I reported the problem on the same day it happened.

Drove back to Alamos without our pesos. Not a great day