Monday, March 11th, 2013

Got up about 7:15.  I forgot to mention that yesterday I wore shorts and sandals for the first time – at least in the afternoon.  

Jim and I took a walk around Viva! Mall and explored the Laureles Mall behind it.  We had a very inexpensive breakfast in Laureles Mall.  We also found a hotel – Hotel Golden Palermo – across the street with a breakfast buffet or you can order off the menu.  We also found a drycleaners across the street from there called Lavanderia Y Tintoreria that charges 6 mil per kilo (about 2.2#) and returns your laundry in 2 days. 

We took a taxi and picked up Angela and went to her mother’s house in Aranjuez.  We decided it would be cheaper (and cooler and faster) for the 4 of us to take a taxi than 2 buses and walking 8 or more blocks.  We had a nice dinner there of soup, salad, rice, chicken, plantain and iced tea.  

Then we took a taxi to Los Molinos mall to see a movie.  I guess that wasn’t well planned because the next movie (OZ) wasn’t starting for 45 minutes.  Instead of walking around the mall, Angela wanted to go into the theater right away.  I think the ticket price was about $5 but this time without choosing seats.  (Maybe because the theater was empty?)  I bought a small box of popcorn (with salt; they don’t have butter) for Reina and I for 6800 pesos (less than $4) and a small coke.  So we waited in the theater until the coming attractions started.  Actually there weren’t any coming attractions instead it was what they call a short film that was made in Colombia.  By then I had finished the popcorn (they call them crispetas) and most of the soda so I went out by myself and with my limited Spanish ordered another popcorn and picked up a free refill of soda.  After about 1 ½ hours of the movie we all decided to leave.  (I was okay with that decision as I was cold – being in shorts and sandals and having drunk at least a full cup of coca cola myself.  We dropped Angela off at her house and headed home.

Jim and I took another walk back behind Laureles Mall and at the hotel I found a flyer for tours to Guatape for 69,900 pesos that includes transportation, breakfast & lunch, visits to the towns of Marinilla & Penol, visit to the Piedra Penon, a walking tour of Guatape, Memory Lane, a boat cruise on Guatape Reservoir, etc.   We found out you can exchange dollars for pesos at Western Union in Viva! mall.  We checked out the exchange rate and it was 1747 for today and they close at 7:30.  I checked it out mathematically and the difference between the 2 (1792.8 downtown vs 1747 in our Western Union is $2.55 per $100).  For the small number of dollars my brother wanted to exchange it would cost more to take a bus downtown to get the best rate.

Back at the apartment Reina made a tasty dinner for me of soup and crepes.  The crepes were like tacos with chicken and a little cheese inside.  Jim headed out to explore some more and eat out.