Banking Woes and Cochabamba Pics

I´m fairly certain international banking is just one of those things I need to stay away from. I had a slight issue with it in Thailand as well, but nothing like Bolivia, plus Thailand was completely my fault. I brought four cards, two debit and two credit, with me to Bolivia, partly because of the issue I had before and partly because I tend to over prepare. Well, it wasn´t over preparing this time.

The school explained to me that the most common way of paying them is to take a cash advance out on a credit card. This way you aren´t charged a fee for every $200 you take out of the atm because that is the most you can take out at one time. The owners of the school took me to the bank to do this. The first bank said my card had a chip their machine couldn´t read. The second bank told me that no bank would be able to read an American Express card. Bummer, but it was only card one and I had three more. So I headed to the atm with my debit card. That´s when it
was taken by the atm. I started to get a little worried but there were no charges put on it when I checked online and I had two more backup plans.

The next day I went with two other students

from my school, to the bank with the atm. The bank was not what you would call open. It looked like something you see in the movies depicting the rushes on the banks when the stock market crashed. There were bars on the doors with guards standing just inside of them and tons of people pushing against them. I have no idea why I didn´t think to take a picture. We went through all the reasons why the bank would be closed, but came up with nothing. Finally we were able to speak with a bank employee through the bars. She told us to go to office a few blocks away where they collect the foreign cards. It took quite a while to find the place, but mostly because we couldn´t believe my card would actually be sent there. It was a one room office on the third floor of an almost abandoned building. The man at the desk opened a drawer and pulled out a five inch stack of cards. I thought certainly my card had to be somewhere in there. It wasn´t. I have no idea what happened to it, I cancelled it.

So on to the next debit card. Nope, it didn´t work, I was starting to freak out. I immediately emailed that bank. They said it was activated and there shouldn´t be a problem. Oh, great! So, on to the last resort - my dad´s credit card that I carry for emergencies. Long story short, it didn´t work either, not the first time or the second time after my Dad called them.

The good news... I was able to find one atm where my second debit card will work, but the ten others I´ve tried still tell me my card isn´t valid. I guess I have to hope there is a Bisa Bank everywhere I go.

What´s the lesson here? I guess to just roll with the punches!