Swindled

Rat bastards. We tried to buy gas today with one of the bigger bills we got from our money changer at the border (nothing different from usual - we always change money at the border with seemingly random guys who wave stacks of bills under our noses), and we were told it was counterfeit!! On closer inspection, it was clearly counterfeit - they´d given us some real, small bills, and we could see the difference. The fake stuff is printed on paper, and some of the numbers were of shoddy quality, and it didn´t have the fancy color-shifting metallic ink in some places. It did have a plastic strip in the middle, and a watermark, and generally appeared genuine. But wasn´t. We got scammed for about $60, and we´re a full day´s drive from the border, so there´s no going back and trying to find the scammers. Rat bastards.

I was really mad, and still can´t curse roundly in Spanish. I tried to get the gas station attendant to teach me some cusswords, but he was too nice and polite. He was to embarrassed to swear. He mumbled a word or two when I insisted, but I would guess they´re equivalent to ´darn´ and ´gosh´. O well. Live and learn.