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LIVING & TRAVEL Ninth in a Series Index

Entry 9: Wednesday, May 1, 1996: "¿No traes cambio?" Or, "Don't you have any change?" The shortage of change for bills larger than 10 pesos ($1.25) exemplifies why expediency is not possible in Mexico. Imagine if every time you wanted to buy a newspaper or a soda for 25c (with a one- or five-spot), the vendor had to run around town for half an hour looking for your change. Of course, travelers are usually saddled with 50 and 100 peso notes, dispensed by ATMs and exchange houses, or they are obliged to carry hundreds of small bills. Large bills instantly brand the traveler ripe for exploitation, and haggling (which has to be done for most everything, even newspapers) is nearly impossible. These inconveniences lead the traveler to invent ingenious strategies -- buying 3-peso coffees with 100 peso bills at fancy hotels, for example. Further confounding the currency debacle, old bulky peso coins (peso literally means "weight") were taken out of circulation in 1993 with the introduction of New Pesos, minus three zeros. These old coins are often proffered as change to the unwitting foreigner in lieu of new pesos. And most folk in rural areas still quote prices in "miles," or thousands of pesos, though old pesos are not accepted. (Except for exchange in banks, where lines for changing money routinely exceed the hours.) I'm off to New Orleans Jazz Fest! Check out Offbeat Magazine for a taste of the festival, or visit the official site at http://www.nojazzfest.com Andrew Nystrom is a 21 year-old Geography-Linguistics student at the University of California at Berkeley. Currently on sabbatical, he has been working as a freelance editor/travel correspondent. Previous travels have taken him to Indonesia, Scandinavia, Ireland, and Guatemala. He was most recently the editor of the Berkeley Guide to Central America for 1996.