Semana Santa - Merida, Venezuela

When I read about Merida I thought I had found the perfect town to stay for a few weeks and focus on improving my Spanish. So many people on forums said Merida was such a great place, it is unfortunate Semana Santa is "ruining" my experience.

For the last 6 days 90% of the shops have been closed all day, after 3:00 you struggle to find places to feed yourself, it's insane. Today I would say 95% of the businesses never opened and now half of those that WERE open, are now closed. Buses out of the city are full for the next two days, so I sit here in my hostel listing to my Michel Thomas Spanish audio-course (it's really great, btw) spending cash at the shitty 4:1 ratio out of the ATM while everyone else is getting 6:1 on the black market.

No matter how I phrased the email to my parents asking them to transfer some cash to the hostels foreign account it sounds terribly shady. From my online banking client I cannot make the transfer and I don't feel like calling the bank. Shit, I might not even be able to call the bank because all of the international call centers are closed anyways. I try to explain that everyone else in the hostel is using the blackmarket to get a better exchange rate.

This is not the "but Mom, everyone is going to _____'s party but me", literally EVERYONE here is getting the good rate (aside from myself). This is not America, the black market cash exchange seems to be the primary exchange because Chavez is such a douche.