When I was 14 (my sister 16) we went to Jamaica with my dad and his friends because one of them was getting married there. Since we were the only "kids" and my dad had all his buddies there, we were pretty much on our own for the duration while he and his friends did more adult-like activities. I was completely naive to the whole 3rd world country thing. I had never been to one before this and in my tiny head I assumed everywhere was probably close to USA and Australia. So here's the story my sister reiterated to me yesterday (of which I don't remember a smidgen of - which worries me for other reasons.)
Apparently we wanted to go into town, so we were trying to find a taxi. There weren't any at the moment, but this guy in a random car pulled over and asked us if we were looking for a ride to go to town. My sister asks "How much to Negril?" and he replied with a good price (how my sister knew what a good price is is beyond me). SO WE GOT IN HIS CAR. Yep. 14 and 16 year old American girls just got into a random guys car for a ride to a different town in a 3rd world country with no one else knowing where they went. Now, my dad had given us American money so we had to exchange it to use it in town, but all the banks were closed. So this guy took us to a back woods place and said he would exchange it for us. He took our money, got out of the car and met with some other people, exchanged the money, and came back. He gave us the money and then brought us to town. According to my sister, it was a good exchange rate. So we just got in a car with a stranger in a 3rd world country without anyone knowing where we went and were taken to the black market to exchange our money. I'm actually a little angry with myself that I could have been that stupid. And I can't help but wonder how my sister could possibly know what a good price is to town and know what a good exchange rate is for US dollars to Jamaican but somehow not really know how dangerous that was at the time? We were extremely lucky this guy didn't take advantage of how completely naive we were.
Another random guy tried to get us to come to some party later on in the evening (again I don't remember this). We didn't think it was a good idea to go to that...
