Plenty of plastic but no cash.

Hola from South America!  Today was quite the roller coaster.  It started off slowly went into a bit of a frenzy of nerves and aggravation but ended okay thanks to the help of others.  This morning instead of the usual breakfast we just had cake, fruit, and tea.  Mr. Leatherwood was busy and we needed to go to the ATM so our morning was spent lounging around the hotel watching some episodes of Ancient Aliens I had saved to the laptop.  Laying around was just making us more sleepy so we decided to get up and go out for lunch.  We had used the last of our Paraguay dough on the taxi ride home from the resturant last night.  So we packed up the ole backpack and set off walking to the bus terminal which is only a few blocks from the hotel.  I exchanged the last $33 dollars I had and got 125,000 guarani.  We caught a taxi to Shopping del sol in hopes of getting some lunch at their food court.  We were told that the mall had an ATM and we could get some more cash.  The taxi ride was around 30,000 guarani (30 mil) so we are under 100 mil total (100,000= 100 mil and so on).  No problem right, I will just use the ATM.  I put the card in the machine to get out the equivelent of $400 dollars and the card was denied.  No big deal, I will use the other ATM that gives you the option to get dollars instead of guarani.  The most it would allow was $100, so I tried that.  Denied again, at this point I am angry and frustrated.  I went to the bank the week before we left to make sure this would not happen.  I was told they made a note on the card and everything would be fine. I guess they were wrong!  We went to Burger King to get some much needed food, set down,  and figure out our next move.  Before this little bump in the road, we had plans to get some cash, eat, and stop by the supermercado to get some much needed supplies before we leave for the countryside tomorrow morning. Lunch was about 45 mil, which leaves us 50 mil to get back to the hotel.  We ate our burgers caught a taxi and returned to the hotel.  When we got back, I called Mr. Leatherwood and told him of our situation.  He said that he was stopping by the hotel a little later to introduce us to his friend that will be taking us to San Cosme.  In the mean time I looked for a number to call about my card since there was not one on the card.  I emailed customer service and let them know I was not happy.  Then we got online and Crissy's friend Brieann was online.  We got her to call my parents to tell them we needed them to skype us ( thank goodness for technology).  We told them the situation and they immediately began to work on getting us some cash via Western Union.  Mr. Leatherwood and Aldo (his friend) showed up and we talked about our upcoming venture to the interior.  He was very very kind and gave us 400 mil until we can get to Western Union. ( We are so grateful that we have met Mr. & Mrs. Leatherwood, they have been so helpful and kind) They left and we went to eat dinner.  Things are crazy at the hotel they are having a huge quinceneria (don't know how to spell it) so they have been preparing all day, and boy do they go all out. We had the laptop with us at dinner, so I got online and went to google translate to tell our favorite waitress something.  We should have done that the entire week.  We weren't sure if she would be able to read it, however she happily read our message and asked if she could type a message to us.  We agreed and our converstation was basically us saying "we appreciate your kindness and understanding of our poor Spanish"  She replied by saying "do not worry, good luck and happiness to you both, I hope to see you soon" 
PS. Summary of the pics.
Us on our balcony, us with Melissa (our favorite waitress), the quinceneria downstairs (it's 9:30 and they have not started partying yet) and the other pic is the Paraguayan version of barbed wire.  They break bottles and mortar them into the top of the fence. We thought that was pretty clever.
Signing out,
James and Crissy

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