el crispito

So much for "...but they don't take American Express." They don't take anything. Not a debit card, not a credit card. Nothing. This doesn't really make any sense to me. Our hotel would let us run up bills in the thousands, and then charge it all at once. However, a bank, a financial institution like the ones that issued my cards, doesn't trust other banks. I have heard from our gringo friends that some stores in Mexico will not take foreign credit cards, but banks?

You can use foreign credit cards in ATMs. I have yet to find one that won't work for me this way. However, you are limited to $3,000 pesos, which is around $300 USD. That's usually just fine, but when you need a lot of cash at once, you have to come up with something else.

We had to do a wire transfer, which is called una transferencia in Mexico. This requires a couple of numbers, one called the "swift" number and then an account number. The local bank did not give me an account number when I first went there. I suspect that for transfers within the country, only the swift number is needed. Yet my bank insisted on a swift number and an account number, so I went back. After a 15-minute wait for it, the man I had been talking to came back and gave me an entirely different name and set of numbers: an account number and an ABA number. These numbers were for the J.P. Morgan Chase Bank in New York City, where the local bank has an account. At least in theory, the deposit is made in their account for me, and then the local bank contacts the central bank in the D.F. to have the money transferred to them, then I can receive the cash, on the second day after I request the transfer.

Hopefully it will work!