Saturday, October 22nd, 2016

The Colombian Peso closed for the week at 2,929 to the Dollar.

I have a leather chess wallet I’ve had for years but the plastic pieces are cracking and some have broken.  I’ve glued and taped several of them back together.  Each month I do an internet search looking for replacement pieces.  I got real excited today when I found this:

http://www.terapeak.com/worth/leather-pocket-chess-set-by-chess-era/351590534473/

But I can’t get any further towards purchasing it.  L

MT arrived at the apt at 9am and we all jumped into a taxi.  On the expressway there was an overhead electric sign that said traffic ahead was very slow at Calle 30.  The driver should have immediately gotten off on Calle 10 and taken Avenida 80 but he didn’t.  Traffic was very heavy in and around Calle 30 and the driver didn’t even get off at Calle 44 which is the east-west street nearest to where we want to be.  Traffic wasn’t moving on the entrance and exit ramps there so I understood why he didn’t try to exit.  Traffic eased noticeably after that and he exited at Calle 50.  We had to backtrack a bit but we still arrived at Mall Laureles with 15 minutes to spare.

Four other ladies joined us in our van and traffice was also heavy on Avenida Ochenta as we tried to exit the city.  We saw a few soldiers with their semi-automatic rifles standing on the side of the road giving us the thumbs up signal.  Traffic was backed up again to pay the toll to enter the tunnel.  That gave locals the opportunity to advertise their wares on the side of the road.  Teresa bought a small bag of 5 mandarin oranges for 2,000 pesos.  We shared a couple and they were pretty sweet.  The van stopped at the usual restaurant but, because of all our delays, only long enough for everyone to use the restroom.

We still arrived at the “resort” by noon.  I found out right away that their wifi zone wasn’t working so I asked someone to turn it on.  I swam in the pool a bit while MT and Teresa worked on their tans.  Back in the wifi zone I found it working so I played 1 games, a draw, on chess.com before it was time for lunch.

We had a nice lunch of soup, salad, meat (pork for me, fish for the ladies), potatoes, fresh juice and a small piece of tiramisu for dessert.  Remember lunch is included in the trip all for 60,000 pesos (a little more than $20) a person.  After lunch the wifi zone wasn’t working.  We all took a little siesta (a Spanish word all Americans know).  I swam in the pool some more and the ladies worked on their tans.  About 3pm we heard thunder in the distance and I saw dark clouds in the same direction we saw last time we were here.  By 3:30 it started raining.  We all changed back into our street clothes and had an ice cream snack a little later.

At 5pm the wifi was working again, I played a few more games and got caught up on my emails, etc.  I paid an extra 18mil for our extras like towels and drinks and we left just before 7pm.  We stopped at the restaurant and I had 2 almojabanas with a cup of café con leche.  The ladies each had an arepa with cheese on top.

Back on the road we returned to Laureles by 9pm.  Because the mall was closed we had to wait about 15 minutes for a taxi.  We were back at the apt by 10pm.

Laura showed me a $20 bill that her grandmother gave her and I gave her 60,000 pesos for it.  I’m not going to exchange it here, I’ll wait until I return to the States to use it.  (I know, $20 in the US doesn’t go far.) 

T-shirt of the day: Who gives a hoot?