Sunday, June 28th, 2015

I slept well, waking/getting up at 6:45.

After a quick breakfast of cereal, we left the finca at 8:10.

When we got to the neighbor’s house the black dog was laying in the yard outside the fence and he didn’t get up, he just opened one eye and looked at us.

After only a 2 minute wait we were on a Salgar bus to El Poblado.  As we were getting there Teresa talked to the driver and I understood his next stop was at Terminal Sur, exactly where we wanted to be.  That saved us a taxi ride but meant I wasn’t going to be getting the sleeping pills I needed for tonight and tomorrow night.

There was an exercise class going on on the main level as we walked downstairs.  We went to window 30, paid 12 mil ($4.80) for both our tickets, met Ruby and her husband Fernando and were on a bus with no wait.

The bus left the terminal at 9:10, I slept for about an hour and we arrived at Tutucan at 10:45.

I was a little surprised to see what looked like a water park.  There was a very long line to purchase tickets but ahead there was a shorter line that we got into.  Actually the shorter line was probably just as long but its windows were just further ahead.  I paid 13,500 for my ticket and 20,000 for Teresa’s ticket.  I think I got a senior discount.  They put one of those paper bracelets on each of us.

There is a lot more to the park than just the rides for children.  I think the first line was for them and our bracelets just let us in the park.

Here are some pictures of the children's play area:

 
We walked up past several food areas finally settling on a tented area called Fonda Tipica where I had shish kebab, salad, frijoles, and a local soda and I forgot what Teresa had.  You can see her here ordering our lunch:

Afterwards Teresa found some coconut cookies for 2mil she remembered from when she was a young girl.  I remember 2 years ago Reina finding them in a downtown Exito when we were ordering Direct TV.  I tried a charcoal broiled corn-on-the-cob but it was pretty hard, not like the sweet corn they have in the States.

They had a little farm with a burro, llamas, goats, rabbits, and what looked like guinea pigs.

Some more pictures of areas we saw while we were walking around;

 
We walked to a courtyard where there were plastic chairs set up and entertainment on a stage at one end.  I recognized some songs: La Bamba, Mexican Hat Dance, theme songs for The Lone Ranger and Bananza but the most unusual music I recognized was Hava Nagila.  There was some dancing and a lot of skits which of course I didn’t understand.  We were there for 3 hours and I finally had enough and wanted to leave.

We walked back up to a food stand where I feel we wasted an hour.  Teresa wanted to buy some arepas con chocolo but they were sold out.  Then she waited for some tortas con chocolo to be made and Ruby had some mesa mora which she ended up spilling all over the table.

We finally left the park at 6pm and there was a very long line waiting for buses back to Medellin.   I took this picture when we were at about the midpoint of the line:

You might be able to see a bus in the distance.  

At 6:55 I figured that there were still enough people ahead of us to fill about 2 buses, so we were close.

A man came by with a clipboard calling for people wanting to go to Terminal Sur so we got lucky and got on a bus earlier than expected.  The bus picked up more people on the way and it became standing room only.  They had the roof vent open and it was cold until we got to Medellin.  I slept for another 30 minutes on the way.

At Terminal Sur we said goodbye to Ruby and Fernando and for 10mil each were quickly on a Rapido Ochoa bus back to the finca. 
Teresa informed me that she left her shorts on the other bus; she was using them as a pillow.

As we were passing the neighbor’s house the killer dogs came running out and the black dog ran right into my stream of pepper spray.  Hopefully, he’ll remember that and be more careful in the future.

Laura found Misery (7.8) on www.yaske.net but it started buffering every minute or so.  I closed all my other tasks and it improved although it occasionally buffered again.

I forgot to take my prostate medicine but at 1am I took my old Pasiflora drops and went to bed.