pesos, dollars...it's all money

I will forever sing the praise of the Mayan Sea Garden resort in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. We seriously had the nicest hotel staff in the world. One of the things that was depressing about coming back into the US was coming back to a world where people are busy, stressed, and much of the time, unfriendly. How many vacation places in the US would you go, and by the end of the week have made friends with the staff. Hector, Elizabeth, Bambi, Claudia, Christian, Carlos...some of the amazing people who became our friends in Mexico. Everyone is just so laid back. Even the maids and ground crew would stop what they were doing, or their conversation to say hola with a smile when you passed. Our week is Mexico gave me a huge appreciation for the culture and a love for the people. Which maybe this is superficial...it's easy to be loving towards people who are bringing you lunch by the pool - but that really wasn't my reason. :) Anyways...so we had this maid, Leticia, who cleaned our room all week. She was probably mid-forties and had a great smile. She kept our condo in great shape. Thursday afternoon, we came in from the beach to a clean room and proceeded to get ready to go out to dinner. I was one of the first ones ready and went to get money for the evening out of my wallet, which was buried inside my backpack which was sitting beside my suitcase, behind the dresser. I had counted my money the day before to see where I was at on my vacation spending...and I was happy to see I had spent less than projected. As I went to grab a 20 out, I realized something was wrong. The day before I had 5 20s in my wallet and today...I had none. $100 was missing from my well hidden wallet. My stomach tied in a huge knot. I (half irritatedly) asked the girls that if they had taken my money for a joke, that they should go ahead and let me know now. They all gave me i-hope-you're-joking looks. Long story short...a different maid had cleaned our room that day. She opted to only steal from me (ironically, the other girls' money and purses were sitting out in the open) and after filling out annoying reports and signing them by the hotel's disclaimer of "we're not responsible for lost or stolen money or jewelry." I accepted the fact that this vacation was going to cost a bit more than expected. So back to the part where our resort was really amazing...later that night, no questions asked, the refunded me (in pesos) and informed me that it wasn't our regular maid who took the money. So after a couple hours of not-so-good feelings towards our Sea Garden staff, I was back to singing their praises. The next day we were back to Leticia...I have a feeling the other maid may have lost her job.