Aventura no Shopping - Manaus
The view onto the lower level of Manauara Shopping's food court area
One of the challenges of travel is keeping your money available and accessible. Here is my experience with the ATM at the Manauara Shopping. A 'shopping' is a mall, for those who don't know :) and Manauara is one of the best here. A little of everything and very attractive.
But I digress.
With no reais in my pocket, I needed to withdraw some cash and so I went about looking for the appropriate ATM. You see, in Brasil you can't just go to any old bank with your international debit card and expect money to come out. You need to find a 'caixa electronica 24 horas" and in the case of the Manauara Shopping, these are located on the bottom floor, food court level, in a corner and the most remote part of the mall.
I slipped the card in, and nothing. A second time, and a message appeared saying the operation was not possible. A third attempt (there are three options and I tried all three - savings, credit and debit) had the same unfortunate result: no cash and an error message. I signed into my online banking app on my phone and there was a message. Suspicious activity and the account was frozen - please contact the bank.
So the question now was how to call the US from Brazil on my Mexican roaming cell phone? I went to a store on level two - Claro, one of Brazil's cell phone companies - and asked. You need to dial an exit code, then '1' then the area code and number. Which I did, to all four numbers on both the card and the message from online banking. There was no answer. It seemed that I was stuck, with no cash and no way to contact the bank!
I asked the clerk again for help and he said he couldn't understand it either - after all it was a Mexican phone and it was roaming just fine. A glimmer of an idea came to life. I dialed the US number AS IF I WAS IN MEXICO, forgetting about the Brazilian exit code number detail, and within two rings, I had someone on the line. Great!
After a short question and answer session with the friendly bank employee, the card was reset and I headed back down into the bowels of the Shopping and tried again. And it worked! I can hardly describe the relief I felt when I heard the whirring sound of the cash being counted and the little slot opening and all the bills popping out.
A most happy sight after a few tense moments!
Hopefully this little episode will be of use to someone in a similar situation someday!