Is it time to panic yet?

Colombia has been great. I´ll definatley be sad to leave this place. The people, the natural beauty, how cheap stuff is and oh by the way, did I mention the gorgeous women? But wednesday morning off to Havana it is. That´s where my problems start.

Dear reader, as you are no doubt aware, Cuba has severly strained relations with the United States for the last 40 years or so. That means, no banks, no ATMs, no credit cards, nothing. Basically Bill told me, bring a butt-load of cash with you, because if you run out while you´re in Cuba, you´re outta luck.

Ok, so I´m in Colombia...how do I get my hands on a couple thousand US dollars. Well I´ll just have my bank wire me the money, no biggie right? Uh...turns out international wire transfers take anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks to complete and no one seems to be able to tell me exactly how long. That´s a problem because like always I waited till about a week advance to even start thinking about this.

My ATM card has a $300 per day limit on withdrawals. You know, I knew that would come back to screw me one of these days. And yes I can have them up the limit, I just need to fax over a form they send me with my signature, and wait until it´s processed. Nope that doesn´t help either.

Well I´ve seen the commercials and so have you. I´ll use Money Gram to wire money out of my bank account and into my grubby little hands. Crap, turns out neither they nor Western Union will process internet transactions intiated from outside one of their list of approved countries, and amazingly enough Colombia isn´t on that list.

So when you´re in times of trouble who do you call? Dad!?!? I need help, send money! Remember when I was 9 and you bought Rahil ¨Thriller¨on vinyl but wouldn´t buy me that cool red and black leather jacket with all the zippers. Yeah, neither do I. Love you, Kashif.