Travel Diary - [27]: One Day in Bitcoinistan

On my way back from Xanadu, I had to transfer planes in Shremograd, Bitcoinistan. I arrived late night on Sunday the 11th, only to learn that my connection flight has been cancelled, and the next one would be leaving only on Tuesday afternoon.  I was not too unhappy; that left me a whole day to relax and see a bit of that tiny but quite interesting country.  (That is what my friend Rick had told me, back in Stockholm. I now know why he was giggling as he said that.)  

Before going to the hotel I thought of changing some dollars for the local currency, the bitč.  Then, while waiting in line at the money changer booth, a weird incident happened, a harbinger of what I would experience in the next day.  Right ahead of me in the line was an old man, who took took out from his valise a shoebox full of hundred dollar bills in neat bundles, and handed it over to the cashier.  I thought that he was a pensioner and those were his life savings.  To my surprise, the cashier took the box under his arm, closed the booth hurriedly, and then darted across the lobby and out the door, disappearing among the crowd in the stret.

The old man just stood there, stunned, still staring at the booth as if he expected it to reopen. A policeman nearby had watched the whole thing, but did not move.  I tried to call him with gestures to come help the old man, but he just shrugged, as if that was a banal occurence in that place. (Later I learned that theft of bitč is not considerd a police matter in Bitcoinistan.)  

As I was wandering about the hall, a person in a burka approached me and asked if I wanted to exchange the dollars that I still had in my hand. I was rather worried at first and instinctively pulled back, but then I remembered the guidebook saying that misrust is a capital offense in Bicoinistan, especially mistrust of masked anonymous strangers.  So I pretended to be calm, and negotiated the deal with him (the voice was of a man).  He took my dollars and handed me a crumpled piece of paper with a QR code on it.  I was sure that I had been scammed, but it was indeed a kind of debit card with the correct amount of bitč in it.

Anyway, after that I went straight to the hotel (with taxi and room paid by the airline).  After a refreshing night's sleep and a decent breakfast (the majik bean paste was quite good) I asked the receptionist about excursions. She recommended a bus trip to the old town of Vercz, only one hour from Shremograd.  The pamplet she gave me promised gorgeous views along the winding road through the Karpelian Mountains, a lunch stopover at the ruins of Count Popescula's castle, and a view of Lake Utxo at sunset on the way back.  Wonderful, I thought.

Shremograd's Central Bus Station was only a ten minute walk from my hotel. It was still a bit cold but sunny, a perfect day for the trip. I stopped at a Starbucks (can't avoid them!) for a frappucino.  Tried to pay with my bitč card, but the cashier did not know what it was (it seems that very few people use the national currency there, strangely).  I tried to pay with a Starbucks gift card that I had in my wallet, but the cashier gave me such a look that I had to apologize and say that it was a just a joke.  In the end he accepted a bill of one trillion Zimbabwean dollars, and even gave me an extra mint wafer for change.