Tuesday, January 12th, 2016

I got up once at 3:30, again at 6:30, took 1 sleeping pill, dueling doggies kept me from falling asleep for awhile, finally waking/getting up at 10:05.

It was 72 degrees when we left the finca at 1:20.  I brought my thermometer with me today.  The black dog came out with another slightly smaller black dog who turned away from the path.  No barking or aggressiveness whatsoever and I gave him a dog biscuit.  He followed us up the path and I gave him another one.  Walking down the sideroad we found the neighbor’s little dog relaxing on the stones and it didn’t move as we passed.  

At the highway, waiting for a bus I checked the temperature and it was 80 degrees, maybe because it was in my tech bag?  We found a 5 gallon gas can and Teresa had me hide it so she could pick it up later.  We had to wait 15 minutes to catch a bus.

We had lunch at Carbón de Leña – Teresa had fish and I had a Chicken Caesar Salad which was pretty good except they put slices of processed ham in it; that’s too popular here.  The total came to 37,500 and I found the temperature was 85 degrees.  

Teresa went to Nueva eps to ask them something and then she had her nails done French style – she knows I really like that – for 15mil, and then picked up a few things at Exito.  In the meantime I went to the park and after waiting about 10 minutes a man invited me to play.  He was stronger than I and pushed me around the board easily winning 2 games.  He asked if I wanted to play again and I told him “no, you’re too lucky”.  I started walking away and realized my Spanish mistake.  I went back and apologized and told him “he’s too strong”.

Another man invited me to play, and I didn’t see Teresa so I agreed.  He was weaker than I but he did give me a challenge and we went into a 2 rook endgame where I also had a bishop and an extra pawn.  I finally won just after Teresa returned so we didn’t have a chance to play another game.

Btw, there is a large pigeon presence in the park because people feed them.  There is poop everywhere.  We had one splat on our board while we were playing.  At one point earlier when I was watching other games someone must have been feeding them because there was a feeding frenzy and one flew over my head touching my hair with his wings.

We went back to Carbón de Leña where Teresa had a mango juice and I had a strawberry juice for 6,500 pesos.  I checked the temperature and at 5:30 it was 84 degrees.

We walked a few blocks away where finally we caught a taxi.  At the highway we waited about 15 minutes for a bus.  When it left the highway and turned toward Caldas I turned and looked at Teresa.  Why didn’t she ask if they were going into Caldas?  We got off and had to wait about 20 minutes for another one.  There were lots of seats but then it turned the corner and lots of people got on filling all the seats and all available standing room so I guess Teresa was right when we got off when we did.

Walking past Guillermo’s we got past the G-dogs undetected and were back at the finca just before 8pm.

Tonight they started showing Dancing with the Stars – Colombian style.  I told Teresa we’ve had that program in the US for 11 years now.

I watched the State of the Union address on USTVNow.

I took 2 sleeping pills with my Tamsulosin at 10:50 and went to bed at 11:15.

T-shirt of the day: Funk with me.