Wednesday, December 23rd, 2015

I fell asleep quickly and only got up once at 6am finally waking/getting up at 9:15.

Teresa talked to Martha and I understood today we have to stop at her office and then go to immigration.

A few minutes later I received an email cancellation for my 1pm appointment from immigation followed by another giving me a new appointment at 3:30.

I’ll post an English translation (gracias a Google Translate) of their email so you will know what I had to work with.

We left the finca at noon, I gave the killer dogs their dog biscuit and after a 5 minute wait were on a Rapido Ochoa bus to Aguacatala.  From there we took a taxi to Martha’s office across from Unicentro.  We picked up some documents and my passport (without a new visa) and then had lunch at a local sidewalk restaurant for 14mil (a little less than $5) a few doors away. 

We got to immigration by 2pm and after a short wait they started processing my papers.  They unfastened the two stapled sets of papers I had and gave me back one page.  In another area they took my picture again and electronic fingerprints.  I paid 49mil for my new visa.  They gave me some other documents back and my passport, still without a new visa inside.

We took another taxi to Martha’s office, they took my passport and documents and I paid the remaining 460,000 pesos of the total 1,260,000 pesos.  Martha gave Teresa about a dozen brochures with her business card she wants Laura to give to the gringos she meets in the restaurant.

We walked a block to the Unicentro mall where we found their food court for the first time.  We each had a fancy ice cream at a Crepes & Waffles (ice cream only) shop for 15,200.  (Our lunch cost more than that.)

We both decided to visit the restroom before leaving the mall.  Outside a long corridor was a music store with violins in the window and I told Teresa I would meet her there.  Of course I was out first and coming out I noticed there were two different corridors coming out of the restrooms.  When I looked down one of them I could see a restaurant at the end so I knew I was going the right way.  And there were the violins in the window I saw when I went in.  After waiting 10 minutes I went and sat back down at the food court keeping an eye on the exit.  I got 3 phone calls that I just ignored since I don’t speak Spanish.  Finally I walked to the women’s restroom with the intention of yelling into the entrance “Teresa, where are you?” but there she was.  She gave me a hard time for not answering my phone (she borrowed a phone from a cleaning lady) and I gave her a hard time for not meeting me where we agreed.

We stopped in Exito where we picked up tomatoes, lettuce, and caramel syrup for waffles but I forgot to buy a Coke for my weekly Bears game.

Outside, after about a 5 minute wait we got a taxi to the highway.  On the way we passed the new river park area being built and I saw where the highway tunnel goes underneath it.  At the Poblado station Teresa told me we would probably have trouble getting a bus because so many people are heading to the fincas for the holidays but we were on a Tratam bus (with seats) after only a 5 minute wait.

Walking up the sideroad Teresa called Guillermo for some reason.  There was a nice full moon lighting our way.  Coming down the path the killer dogs came out and I gave each of them a dog biscuit.

We got back to the finca at 7pm.

I understood tomorrow we’re going to Caldas, have breakfast at Aymará, buy some much needed dog food and a couple other things at a grocery store.  With that in mind I set the alarm clock (on my cell phone) to 7am.

I took 2 sleeping pills at 10:45 and we went to bed at 11:15pm.

T-shirt of the day: Feeling fierce.