Thursday, April 30th, 2015

I fell asleep quickly not waking until I heard Laura in the bathroom around 4:30am.  I got up at 4:50 for my own trip to the bathroom.  About 30 minutes later the dogs started competing with the neighborhood dogs – who can bark the loudest or the longest.  Teresa got up at 6:15 and I followed at 6:30.

At 8:15 Don Carlos showed up with a large turtle he found somewhere in the jungle (garden).  Teresa brought it into the finca and put it down but I guess we scared it too much because it peed on the floor.  She took it outside and put it in her garden and left it some pieces of bread soaked with water.

It's about a foot long.

Close-up.

We left the finca just before 9am, we noticed the turtle (and the bread) was gone, and I saw the ants are back just not as many.  The killer dogs hasseled us but didn’t approach.

All the buses going by were direct buses to Medellin and after waiting 15 minutes for a Caldas bus we crossed the street and quickly caught a Caldas bus going in the opposite direction.  After a couple miles he turned off and went up a hill and turned around at a small town.  Soon we were past where we had been waiting by the highway.  

In Caldas we stopped at BanColombia where I took out enough cash to give to Teresa for food for the month.

We walked a few blocks to Merkepaisa where Teresa spent an hour filling our cart with food for 489,426.

Walter picked us up and we made a stop at a bakery for a loaf of bread for 3,300, a small hardware store for a can of plastic cement and a paint brush for 19,800 and a pet store for a medium sized bag of dog food for 37mil.

We had to wait on the highway for 5-10 minutes because of roadwork and then easily got to the top of the side road.  We were temporarily stopped by the ditch that Guillermo had dug.  Teresa suggested we fill it in with dirt where the wheels would meet but I suggested using the large nearby rocks.  While they were discussing what to do next I picked up a few bags and headed down the hill.  The killer dogs came out and gave me a hard time but didn’t approach when they saw my can of pepper spray.  I noticed the ants were gone.  I left the bags and headed back up the hill where I saw Laura coming down with a girlfriend.  Walter had gotten the car to the closest spot to the finca and I helped bring down the rest of the bags.  We paid him 25mil for his efforts.

Teresa called Natalia to find out how late in the month I can pay my health insurance without being late.  I understood it should be paid on, or by, the 1^st of every month.  Tomorrow we will go to the small BanColombia office in the Envigado Exito.  Because we expect long lines, we will take turns standing in line while the other takes care of other business.

The NFL Draft began tonight at 7pm.  With the 7^th pick in the draft, the Chicago Bears selected Kevin White, wide receiver from West Virginia.

We watched In the Bedroom (7.5).

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

T-shirt of the day: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.