Above u can see the front and the back of the 5000 colon bill. It's about $10, but closer to $9. In between those are some of their 100 colon pieces which are like less than 50 cents each. Below there is a 2000 colon piece that's around $4. In order for me to get this dinero, there were a couple things that took place at the Costa Rican bank this morning found in the town of Santa Elena.
1. Step one, take off your purse, bag, or other object and place it into a key locker that you can get at the end of your bank time.
2.Before you go into the bank, you must enter a glass box enclosure that u alone are stuck in to make sure that u have nothing dangerous. Basically, this is a metal detector, but much more scary.
3. Then as normal you stand in line to wait for your turn. Also, there is a line for elderly, pregnant women, people with disabilities, etc. They don't have to wait in the normal line and can have sort of an express transaction experience. I spoke with a fellow woman who was waiting in line in the bank and told her that in America I hadn't really seen this and she was pretty surprised. She also told me that it's common to find in other places as well around town.
So while you are waiting in line there's this series of infomercials that are going on on televisions that show the latest way to get rid of wrinkles, sagging skin, etc. It was a pretty long wait to come up to the window because at this point, it's coffee hour. The attendant that I get seems to be a bit tired and when I ask him if this is the truth, he hesitates and then responds sí.
While at the window, I needed to do 3 separate transactions because 2 other ladies on the trip gave me some money to change over and then I needed to take out some money for myself. Changing money from dollars to colones shouldn't be a difficult thing to do, but around the 2nd money change, I realized that the attendant tried to credit me $105 but I know that I handed him $125. Immediately, I freak out a little and try to explain to him in Spanish that this is not the correct amount hoping that he would believe me and that I wasn't trying to challenge him in any way. (I heard that previously this bank had been held up a couple of times.) So then, I wait very nervously as I watch him look around and count all of the money from all of the transactions for the day. Of course at this point, I am the only one in the actual bank from our group while everyone else waits in the lobby behind the glass infrastructure. Since this was also someone else's money I was also concerned even more. After some time passes, my profesora, turns into Mama mode and enters into the main area in the bank after she sees that I am facing some trouble. Being a near native speaker, she comes and makes sure that all is well. At this point the clerk realizes that he did make a mistake and gives me the 10,000 colones ($20) that I knew I required. A little stressful, but life's a story!
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