Tuesday, October 20th, 2015

It seemed like it took 30-60 minutes or so to fall asleep last night.  I got up once at 4:15.  Laura was taking a shower so I had to use the guest bathroom in the back.

Giraldo arrived at 7:15, Teresa got up right away, I got up at 7:45.

While I was feeding the dogs I noticed Luna favoring her right hind leg.  Somehow she seems to have hurt it.  I wonder if she got bit by another dog.

Here are the final pictures (Day #15) of the kitchen after Giraldo’s portion of the work was completed:

We paid Giraldo his final payment of 130mil plus another 84mil towards the last of the materials.

We all, Giraldo included, left the finca at 2pm.  We got past the killer dogs undetected, only had to wait 5 minutes for a bus, and were at Carbón de Leña at 3pm.  I called Alan and he arrived a few minutes later just before our food arrived.  He indicated he had already eaten because we were meeting so late.

What I remember about Alan: He’s 45 years old, moved to Colombia a year and a half ago from Indiana with his Colombian wife and her 8 year old son.  First they stayed in her hometown, a small Colombian town which was hot as blazes, and then moved to Envigado.  His wife teaches English at a local school and she prefers they speak English at home.  He’s leaving for a week on November 16^th for a trip back to the States to take care of some business.  I’m sure we’ll be getting together sometime in the future to play chess.

Alan also reminded me about Pricesmart, a Costco type retailer.  He said it’s in Belen at Carrera 70 & Calle Primera and he would loan us his membership card if we wanted to check it out.

After Teresa finished eating she left for Nohelia to have some work done.  Alan and I parted about 4:15.  I walked through the park and saw a couple of boards (chess) open.  At Nohelia I got a haircut for myself.  About 5pm I asked Teresa how much longer and she said 2 hours.  I left for the park and watched some chess games underway.  Finally, a young man finished a game and invited me to play.  I won both games and then another young man sat down to challenge me.  I told him beforehand that I only had time for one game.  I beat him pretty easily.

I was back at Nohelia by 6:30 and she finished at 7:30.  It only cost 70mil (about $25) for my haircut, her hair work (whatever that was) and her manicure and pedicure.

We were going to buy a few things at Exito to take back to the finca but Teresa told me we wouldn’t have enough time to catch a bus.  We took a taxi down to the highway and shortly were on a bus back to the finca.  It was a cool night, I got back to the finca without sweating and we even got past the killer dogs undetected.  Now I wonder if they are even there today.

It was just before 9pm when we got back, the NLCS games was on Direct TV (in English no less) and the Mets and Cubs were tied 2-2 in the top of the 6th.  I watched the last few innings and the Mets won 5-2.

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