Expired Money

My hotel in Mbale, for some reason, only accepted visa cards. That’s a new one. I had an Am Ex and a Mastercard on me. So I ended up having to pay for my week’s stay in cash. That wasn’t a huge deal because at this point, I keep stupid quantities of cash on me for such situations. However, this time when I paid they told me my dollars were expired! They even had the big heads!

The change desk in Kampala told me they’d give me a better rate if I changed a post-2006 bill, which was weird, but whatever. But in Mbale they do not accept pre-2006 bills as legal tender.

This lead to me having to go through my three different money hiding spots in the lobby and looking through all my bills for ones that were post-2006. Not pleasant.

At least now I can feel okay about leaving $1000 in my suitcase when I go out for the day, because apparently all that money is “expired”.