Saturday, February 20th, 2016

I slept well until one of the dogs started doing their thing about 4am.  After that I just cat napped when it was quiet enough to allow me to do so.

Well, we just had some excitement.  We heard a lot of barking indicative of someone or someone’s dogs entering our area.  We went outside and there was a man coming down the trail and his puppy was being attacked by the terriers.  We tried to keep the terriers off him as much as possible and if he had been alone he probably would have been killed.  In the melee suddenly a large dog appeared – apparently the mother or father of the puppy.  The terriers didn’t bother the large dog much because – she was larger than they.  Finally the man was able to pick up the puppy and things quieted down.  I understand the man was from the new finca up the hill; he’s the one who put in the floodlight at the top of the hill.

I took a nap from 11:30 to 12:30.

We left the finca at 12:45, I gave the black dog 1 large dog biscuit and we were on a bus after a 5 minute wait.  Traffic was very heavy, in fact at one point before we got to Medellin we sat without moving for 20 minutes.  Strangely there was almost no traffic coming from the other direction either.  What could cause all lanes to be stopped in both directions?  There was a small accident where a motorcycle was lying in one lane with a car whose passenger door was dented in but traffic was still heavy after that.  It took us 90 minutes to get to Aguacatala station where it should have taken about 40 minutes max.

We found a “con effectivo” (with cash) car that took us to Viva Laureles for the same price as a bus.

I made an ATM withdrawal and we went across the street to Mall Laureles.  We ordered a Frischuleta and soup to share from Frisby.  Teresa also ordered a juice and I a medium pepsi with ice (mainly because it’s colder than juice).  The total came to 31,800 (about $10).  Laura arrived and she ordered a junior fish soup and juice for 21,200 (about $6.50).  It was 3pm by the time we started eating.

We walked back to Viva Laureles where we bought a cake for 25,500 (about $7.75) to take to Vicky’s house.  

We took a taxi to her apartment at Calle 37 #102-30 in barrio Santa Monica.

At Vicky’s we saw Daniela’s new baby girl.  She’s 15 days old and was named Amelia.  Real cute and real quiet.  Laura’s English speaking boyfriend Juan was there so I took advantage of the situation to question him about internet access.  He recommended I check with the internet providers (Movistar, Une, etc.) rather than go to Monterey.  He also agreed with Teresa that it wouldn’t be a good idea to show a new smartphone on the street.  He said he would make a few calls for me so I gave him one of my “business” cards.  He gave me one of his business cards – he’s an engineering consultant for a company called Go-Tec.  I also told him about the hardware my brother informed me about and that I would call them in the US.

Ladies kept coming into the apartment to have a look at the baby.

We left at 7:15, took a taxi to Poblado station, said goodbye to Laura (who was on her way to meet some friends in Parque Lleras), and were on a bus after about a 30 minute wait.  We got past the G-dogs undetected and were back at the finca at 9pm.

T-shirt of the day: I need some Ha Ha.