Sunday, July 19th, 2015

I got up at 2am and 5am and 8am finally waking/getting up at 9:15.

I got an email from my son Jim that he booked his flight and will be here August 7^th through the 15^th.  Yay!  I’m excited!

When I was uploading the picture of the tarantula for yesterday’s post I found the pictures I had taken at the waterpark.  I added them so you might want to go back to June 28^th and take a look at them.

In blogger.com I received a message that “Karen, Neil, Scott added you to their circles” but I’m not sure what that means.  Lol. It sounds nice though.

Today I received the following link from one of the expats

http://colombiareports.com/dollar-through-cop2700-barrier-experts-say-us-currency-could-reach-cop3000/  the contents of which I have included here:

The US dollar opened trading at more than 2,723 Colombian pesos on Friday, a level not seen since 2004.  According to experts, the dollar could appreciate even further and exceed a value of COP3,000 within a year.

The peso has been in free fall since the third quarter of last year when crude oil prices began dropping.

Oil makes up more than half of Colombia’s exports and 20% of government revenue.

Over the past year, the value of the dollar compared to the Colombian currency has gone up 48.5%.

Oil prices have dropped to under half the value they had a year ago.

According to the director of Colombian branch of Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual, Armando Montenegro, the current value of the dollar “will maintain and probably even rise a little towards the end of the year.”

According to Montenegro, the dollar could reach COP2,900 before the end of the year.

The expected lifting of economic sanctions on Iran, a major oil producer, and a possible increase in US interest rates could push the Colombian currency’s value are likely to push the value of the dollar even further.

“The condition of the economy of Colombia and the rest of the world is probably going to push the dollar to COP3,000, or even COP3,250″ in 2016, Montenegro was quoted as saying by economic newspaper Portafolio.

Other economists said that the dollar is likely to stabilize in the course of 2016 and could then again drop below the COP3,000 barrier.

Colombia’s central bank is also expecting the US dollar will continue to increase in value and warned the country’s economy is going to feel the “shock” of collapsing oil prices and an increase in the price of the dollar.

“We presume that these currency exchange levels will maintain for a while. The fact that we are talking about a persistent exchange rate, shows a new reality we will have to live with for a relatively long period of time. The economy is going to have to make an adjustment,” said Central Bank vice-president Ana Fernanda Maiguashca.

Colombia’s Finance Minister announced earlier this week that the country’s 2016 budget will grow less than the country’s inflation, forcing austerity measures to avoid a major deficit.

In addition, a recent related article stated:

Almost 20% of the Colombian government’s revenue comes from oil, for which global prices have fallen by as much as 60% since last July. Iraq and Saudi Arabia are producing record quantities, and shale oil extraction in the United States has further increased supply, putting downward pressure on prices.
Since July the Colombian peso has fallen over 40% from under 1900 per US dollar to over 2700.
Oil prices fell 3% on Wednesday on news of a nuclear deal with Iran which would remove sanctions on the oil-producing country which looks to produce a million barrels per day by the end of this year, almost as much as Colombia’s production.
Over the past year, the dollar went from 1861 pesos on July 8, 2014 to peaking at 2697 pesos just after midday on Tuesday, a 44% loss in value.

That’s not good news for Colombia but it’s good news for me and any other Americans living or visiting here.

At 1pm it started raining and we unplugged the TV.

It was about 1:30 and I was having a nice lunch of soup, 2 fried chicken legs, salad and the ever present white rice.  As usual I put my rice in the soup and had just finished it.  I was eating one of the chicken legs with a little BBQ sauce and I felt I wasn’t going to be able to finish all the food.  I tried to give the other chicken leg to Teresa but she wouldn’t take it.  I started coughing, then gagging, then I realized I was going to throw up.  I dashed into the bathroom but didn’t quite make it and got vomit on my poncho, the bathroom floor and the rest in the toilet.  I have no idea why that happened; something that bothered me from breakfast?  I also didn’t really feel hungry at lunch time.

At 4pm it started raining again and we unplugged the televion again.  Teresa let Luna and Tony come inside the finca because of the storm.  Tony was in a corner and Luna was under my table.  I told her to sit and Tony came over and put his paws on me looking for a dog biscuit.  That’s the wrong type of conditioning.

This is one of those rare afternoons where it feels a little chilly in the finca; but then we’re probably a thousand feet or more higher than Medellin.   Because I puked on my sweat suit I only had my pajamas on so I added a sweater.

I watched Conviction (7.2) on Netflix and then I started watching Margin Call (7.1).

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