Wednesday, August 1, 2012

SAN & FSD – > DFW – > CUN – > Ferry dock – > Isla Mujeres

Taking the ferry from Cancun to Isla Mujeres.

Alyssa and I woke at the break of dawn just to rush to our airports in separate parts of the country to meet in Dallas, board a plane to Cancun and begin our Aventura Mexicana!

We arrive in Cancun, take a transfer to the ferry dock and board our ferry to Isla Mujeres. Arriving on Isla, we make our way to Nautibeach Condos on the North Beach. Beautiful place to stay. We settle in and have a bite to eat at the restaurant—service was slow, food ok, but expensive.

After dinner we ventured down the road to make sure we could find the gasoline dock (this is where we have to be by 7:30 the next morning to meet our whaleshark boat). We found it no problem and proceeded to the HSBC bank so I could withdraw some pesos.

Our adventure officially begins when the ATM machine crashes during my transaction, proceeds to reboot and DOES NOT RETURN MY CARD. Suddenly, I have no way to get cash. No problema, we’ll figure out something. “Bienvenido a Mexico!”

We returned to our condo and asked the attendant if she could call the bank so we could figure out how to get my card back. After a few mins of waiting on hold she spoke with a rep and gave me the bad news. Card gone. They can’t return it and, what’s more, it could have been spit out to the next person trying to use it. An emergency call to my bank to cancel the card ensues. She had a Vonage phone line with a US area code, so it was very easy to make a domestic US call. After being on hold and handed from one rep to another, my account closed, ATM cancelled, and a new one being mailed to me….AT HOME.

So now we have to figure out a way to get cash. But it’s after hours, we have to be up early tomorrow AND we already had some cash. So we decided to try the bank the next day to see if they would advance me cash on my Visa. Without worry, we turned in for the night.