100 dollars broken in half

Losing money while traveling can be one of the worst things that can happen to you, but sometimes it happens and in the least imagined way.

The plane was about to land in the place that motivated me to visit Ecuador: the legendary Galapagos Islands, and I did not take my eyes off the window, the landscape of an intense turquoise sea had me excited.

I had already been informed that to visit these islands that are National Park, a rather expensive entrance tax had to be paid: $50 for citizens residing in Mercosur countries and $100 for all other tourists in the world. I had set aside the money for that from my total budget of the trip through Ecuador.

All right, I got off the plane, picked up my luggage and then I had to go through the ticket office where you check your passport and you must pay your entrance tax, cash only, do not accept cards for this.

I took out a $100 bill and while I wait for my $50 return, I see that the girl at the box office is checking the money in detail, turns it, feels it, looks at it against the light and finally places it on top of a kind of tablet where she rubs it with her fingers. Suddenly ... zuas! The $100 bill is split in half!

"It's fake," she tells me, and I only manage to babble "but ..."

"If you don't cancel the entry tax now, your passport will be retained here until you leave the islands, until you pay."

Photo: The beautiful stamp that they put in your passport when visiting these islands

After my fright and anguish for having lost that money, I felt relief, because I thought that for having given false money, without knowing it obviously, they could have put me in jail or something. I quickly searched my portfolio for the remaining cash and fortunately I was able to pay the $50 required to enter the Galapagos Islands.

The girl at the ticket office handed me my Visitor Control Card, my passport and my $100 bill broken in half ...

But why did I carry a fake bill? I never imagined it but apparently it has happened to many people.

As many know, in Venezuela there was a foreign exchange control mechanism and in order to obtain foreign exchange for trips at a fairly economical rate, Cadivi was called, you had to meet certain requirements before traveling and the bank enabled you an amount through credit card and another in cash. To travel to South American countries, the amounts they approved were lower. I went to Ecuador in 2013 and if I remember correctly you could consume up to $2000 annually with your credit card (of course, if you had a large limit or could pay while you consumed) and $300 in cash.

Using my savings, I had bought $100 a year before this trip, to have them saved as extra for some departure. Black market is told and an Argentine friend had told me that her aunt, who was Paraguayan and lived for years in Caracas, could sell me. She had diplomatic friends from the Paraguayan embassy who sometimes gave her to be exchanged among her acquaintances to Bolivars and at the same time she earned a commission.

Yes, that $100 bill I bought turned out to be fake. I never said anything to my Argentine friend, she had already left the country and I didn't contact her aunt to claim, it had been more than a year since she sold it to me.

No way, sometimes you lose, at least I had this anecdote to tell and as a souvenir the fake $100 bill broken in half...

¡THANK YOU FOR READING!

Photos taken by me