Monday, May 4th, 2015

I slept well until the alarm went off at 6am.

Of course after wearing shorts and sandals yesterday I have about 6 more bites on my feet and legs.

We left the finca at 7:50 and got past the killer dogs undetected.

We waited 20-25 minutes and finally took a bus to Caldas where we quickly caught another to Envigado.

At nueva eps I understood the lady working there told Teresa we have to come back in June for my appointment.  Teresa didn’t accept that answer and talked to a number of other people.  Finally she took a number (66) and since they were serving 03 we knew there would be a wait.  

She waited there while I went to Bancolombia, took out a little cash and got in the preferencial line.  I estimate there were about 75 people waiting in the regular line and only 5 in my line in front of me.  The sign for my line said it was for people with a Bancolombia debit card but I decided to take a chance and stay there anyway.  The man currently being served, talked to the teller for about 20 minutes.  The woman standing in front of me pulled out a wad of bills from her purse and proceded to count it in front of me.  I estimate she had about 4million pesos.  When the woman in front of her got to the teller she pulled out an even larger stack of bills.  When it was finally my turn I paid my health insurance bill of 110mil without any problem.  

I stopped a block away at Carbón de Leña where I took a photo of my receipt with my iPad but I wasn’t able to email it because I didn’t have a wi-fi connection.

I stopped at a Gana kiosk and added 50mil to my cell phone minutes.

Back at nueva eps Teresa had gotten another number (51) from someone but she was still about 15 numbers away.  When it was finally her turn it didn’t sound like she made much progress on getting an appointment.  I guess somebody was checking on something because she told her we would go to lunch and come back.

We had lunch at Carbón de Leña for 28mil.  I got their wi-fi password and emailed a copy of my health insurance payment to Natalia.  Teresa then called her to confirm everything was ok; it was ok, but in the future she wants us to pay on the first of the month (or earlier I guess).

Back at nueva eps Teresa was finally given information to call for an appointment for me.

At $efecty we paid 64,900 for Une (wi-fi), 95,225 for electricity (epm), and 89,900 for Direct TV.

Teresa stopped at a small hardware store and bought 2 plastic pipe connectors for 7,200.  I understand these were for Don Carlos.

Teresa bought more material for a blouse for 6,300 but we found the tailor shop closed.  A neighbor said she’s normally open all day but today she is sick.

I thought we were going to stop at Exito to pick up a few things but Teresa said she was tired and just wanted to get back to the finca.

We took a taxi to the highway and after a 15 minute wait (2:10) we got the last 2 seats on a direct bus.

The bus quickly hit very heavy traffic; it was one of those days where the bus doesn’t move for 5 minutes and then advances 100’.  Everyone in the bus was baking from the hot sun.  We were envious of a woman sitting in one of the front seats who had a fan.  We decided we should buy one next chance we get.  I watched each of the ladies with long hair, one by one, twist it and pile it on top of her head.  This would have been a perfect time for someone to come on the bus selling bottles of water but it didn’t happen.  After an hour we finally reached signs alerting us to roadwork ahead.  15 minutes later we got past the actual roadwork and started moving slowly.  We could see that traffic wasn’t any better in the other direction.  

As soon as we passed the cloverleaf leading back to Medellin we were able to move quickly.

When we got off the bus Teresa talked to a man at the bottom of the hill.  I understood they were talking about rebuilding the sideroad and Teresa had me give him 100mil.  After talking to him a couple more minutes she took the money back and I understand sometime this week we are to pay a man who lives up the hill in one of the other fincas.

As we passed the killer dogs, they barked at us from inside the fence but didn’t come out.

We finally were back at the finca by 4pm.

Teresa has a vein appointment at 3:30 in Torre Intermedica on Wednesday.  It will be nice not have to go out tomorrow.

We started watching Jeepers Creepers (6.1).  I recognized the movie but Teresa didn’t so I have no idea where or with whom I saw it before.

As usual at 8pm Teresa switched to one of her own Spanish TV programs.

I took my sleeping pills at 11pm and went to bed at 11:15.

T-shirt of the day: Chocolate is my boyfriend.