Wednesday, November 25th, 2015

I fell asleep quickly and didn’t wake up until 5:30am and got up at 7am with the alarm.  I think it rained most of the night but it had stopped by the time I woke up.

I saw on TV what appeared to be an announcement that Saludcoop, medical service here in Colombia, is closing.

We left the finca at 9:30 and got past the killer dogs undetected.  At the top of the hill we saw that there had been a small landslide that blocked most of the path.  We had to walk close to the barbed wire fence to get past it.  Walter was waiting for us and he took us to Caldas.  In town I noticed a large truck with a line of people with jugs, buckets and even cooking pots waiting their turn to get water.  Teresa told me that Caldas hasn’t had water since last Friday.  Yikes!

At Laura’s school we walked up the hill from the gymnasium into a two story building where Teresa picked up a booklet that contains Laura’s school records for the past few years.  (Inside was an invitation to tomorrow’s graduation at 10am.)  Then what was that last week?

We called Walter to come pick us up and in the meantime we stopped in a small store across the street where I had a café con leche.   Uncharacteristically it was hot and I wasn’t able to finish it by the time Walter showed up about 10 minutes later.  He took us to El Poblado where we caught another taxi whose driver knew the way to La Visitacion, the mall near Zona Dos.

I understood Teresa has a 3pm appointment and it was only 12:30 so walking through the mall we stopped in a Christmas store.  While Teresa was picking out some different colored branches to decorate the finca I just wandered around looking at things.  I did notice a pretty lady with a nice figure maybe in her late 30s.  I found a set of 3 wax candles with an LED bulb on top with a remote control.  Since it was in English I turned it on and was able to change the color of the candles to any of 15 different colors.  A saleslady stopped by and asked me something.  I usually say something like “I’m just looking” or “I’m waiting for her (Teresa)” but this time I said “I’m sorry I don’t speak much Spanish”.  A minute later a man came in and asked in perfect English if I needed something.  His name was John, he is a retired police officer from New Jersey.  He was born in Colombia but his parents moved him to the US at the age of 3.  We talked a few minutes about ATMs, currency exchange rates and finally about “The Problem”.  When he finally left he walked out with the pretty lady.

Teresa found some Christmas caroling dolls that were 60 to 80mil each but only 180mil for a set of 4 because they were on sale.  They packaged them up pretty well in the original box and put it in a bag with scotch tape on top to make a handle.  

We stopped in the mall’s food court where I had a chicken salad with mango juice for 21,200 and Terea had sancocho (potatoes, corn on the cob and meat in a soup broth) for 18,900.

Across the street at the beauty parlor Teresa waited from 1:50 to 2:30 before they took her to have her hair done.  I read some of Of Human Bondage, the book I brought with me.  I’m glad it fits in my Tech bag.  About 3pm to 3:30 I got my haircut.  Teresa still wasn’t done so I walked over to Carulla in Zona Dos looking for C batteries.  They only had AA and AAA but I picked up a 600ml bottle of Pepsi for tomorrow night’s Bears vs Packers game on national TV.

Back at the beauty parlor Teresa finally finished up at 4:10.  I paid 202 mil which included a bottle of shampoo she wanted.  We walked over to Zona Dos where we found an ice cream shop called Mudis.  I had their brownie with vanilla ice cream and Teresa had ice cream with sliced almonds for a total of 12,700.

We thought it would be easier to catch a taxi downstairs at Carulla but it took about 20 minutes even though we were the only ones waiting for one.

Traffic was heavy getting to the Poblado station and again after we waited 15 minutes for a bus.  Walking up the sideroad at 6:30 it was already dark but there was a full moon but it was just coming over the mountains so it wasn’t very helpful.

The killer dogs must have been playing in the sideroad close to the finca because they met up coming up as we were going down.  I tried to give them each a dog biscuit but they seemed skittish in the light of my flashlight so I just tossed one to each of them.

Teresa set up the caroling dolls on a low table next to the TV.

I received an email from MBE asking if I had a package mailed to me.  I’m sure it’s my Nook Glowlight Plus so I replied in English and translated Spanish.

I took 3 sleeping pills at 10pm and went to bed at 10:30.

T-shirt of the day: Cops come and try to snatch my crops.