Monday, January 25th, 2016

I fell asleep quickly, got up twice during the night, was awakened by the terriers around 6am, finally walking/getting up at 9am.

Une called about 8am and I understood they should arrive about 8 or 9am.  It’s 10:30 and there is still no sight of them.  11:30 and no Une.  Noon and no Une.  12:30 and no Une.  1pm and no Une.

We left the finca at 1:30, I gave the black dog 2 dog biscuits and we were on a Salgar bus after a 5 minute wait.  (Before we got on the bus Teresa found 2 coils of strong wire that she had me hide.  I guess she needs it at the finca for some reason.)  I mentioned the name of the bus because there was a sign that said they had wi-fi with the password.  I keyed it into my iPad and got an internet connection.  It took a few minutes to download my 100 plus unread emails.  How do they get wifi on a moving bus and I can’t get it at the finca?

The Colombian Peso hit 3,398 per US dollar today.

At Carbón de Leña Teresa ordered a caserole(?) and I ordered their pork shish kebab.  I emailed a copy of my hotel payment to Golden Palermo, downloaded another book from Barnes & Noble, checked the current Colombian Peso exchange rate (3,362), looked up the address of the Modern Museum of Art, checked the Immigration website (my Cedula isn’t ready for pickup) and read my emails.  I also found I didn’t get any rebate for the 16,824 ATM fee I paid for my Citibank withdrawal.  My pork was a little chewy but I just pretended I was eating ribs off the bone.  

Laura arrived after we had finished eating and she ordered their ribs.  She told me she found English lessons with a gringo teacher at EAFIT (a very good university) 2 hours a day, Monday thru Friday for 423,000 (about $130) a month.  This is exactly what I wanted – a gringo that would work with her on her pronounciation.  She told me the ribs were very tough, she didn’t eat anymore and Teresa went and had a long conversation with the owner/manager.  They only charged 6,500 for it so maybe they gave us a discount.

I stopped at a few copy centers until I could find one that could make color copies of the color coded vacation itinerary I made.

We added another 20mil to my cell phone at a Gana booth.  We stopped at Todo Drogas where I bought another bottle of HialTears because I’m getting low on my eye drops.  They had a promotion – I bought a 15ml bottle for 31,900 and got a 10ml bottle free.  Last time I spent 25,800 for a 10ml bottle at a pharmacy in Santafe CC.

We stopped in Exito where they picked up milk, laundry soap, kitchen cleaner, bleach and sugar while I waited in line.  

We quickly caught a taxi and dropped Laura off at Wilson’s apartment and were dropped off at the highway.  We waited about 20 minutes for a bus but at least we got seats.  

When we got off the bus we picked up the wire, got past the killer dogs undetected and were back at the finca by 8:15.

Still no internet.

I finished watching Band of Brothers.

I took 2 sleeping pills with my Tamsulosin at 10:45 and went to bed at 11:30pm.

T-shirt of the day: Don’t quit your dream.