Oh man, today has been a winner.
1) As stated before, the one ATM on the island doesnt take my ATM card.
2) VERY few places here take credit cards.
3) I can´t convert any of my Pacific Francs (XPF) anywhere on the island. Most of my cash was in that form.
You can see, this is leaving me with one moster big ass problem. I did find a place where I can charge the currency right to Visa, but they charge a 15% commission. I´m not sure I have a choice in the matter. I might just have to take the hit because I don´t see an alternative.
The place where I´m staying (I don´t want to call it a hotel. More like a boarding house) says they take Visa, but the woman who runs the house isnt there today and she´s the only one who can do it. I should be fine if I can get that taken care of.
The lack of ATMs and credit cards is a function of the remotness of this place. The closest human settlemetn is over 1,000 miles away and it Pitcairn Island….which has 46 people, 7 of which (half the men) are in jail for having sex with minors (true story).
The internet connection I´m using is very slow, has about a 12¨ monitor and runs IE6 (someone should have told me my site looks that bad in IE. I need to resize all my images).
I had no luck uploading photos to Flickr today. I´ve taken a few photos of the Moai today and will be taking a bunch tomorrow. I don´t know if I will be able to upload them this week. Same with video. I´m sure I will be able to back in Tahiti.
I have been able to determine my schedule for the rest of the month, upto American Samoa. I think I’m only going to visit two islands beyond Tahiti in French Polynesia. There are just too many to visit, I’m sort of behind schedule anyhow, and Tahiti is expensive. That will give me a few more day on Raratonga.
I ended up taking the hit. My friend Amy did find an alternate way of getting me money which would have involved sending a Moneygram to myself. I’ll keep that one in mind as I will with the non-4 digit PIN. I think I will be calling my bank next week.
Hey Gary, sounds like you are hadling the situation quite well despite the circumstances. That is the perfect mind set! I don’t know if this is going to be of any help but I have experience that often times in other countries, the pin numbers for ATMs are 5 or 7 digits while ours here in the states are usually 4. Perhaps you can call up your bank and find out the dealio? I know, far easier said than done, especially with no food in your system and no money in your pocket but I thought it might be useful info. Enjoy!