Saturday, December 23, 2017

Since I didn’t go to the gym yesterday and it’s going to be closed all next week, I went to the gym today.  I did most of my exercises in an hour and 15 minutes.

Walking through the park on my way back to the apartment I ran into Doug, the Canadian.  We chatted a bit and he asked why I didn’t answer his email.  I gave him one of my business cards and then he realized he sent it to Anderson instead of Andresen. 

Later in the afternoon I made a trip to La Vaquita for a few items that Teresa needed.  While waiting in their express line I turned around and saw a whole pig (head and all) in a shopping cart and people were posing for pictures.  I was a little late getting my cell phone out for a photo.

My brother emailed me with a reminder that I might be able to get the loaf pan and thermometer at Home Center.

Wow, I checked online and the cedula I think I paid 138,000 pesos for cost me $61.70 which is 2237 COP/USD when the current exchange rate is more like 2937 COP/USD.  If I’m right, boy did I get taken.  (On 2^nd thought it must have been 183,000 not 138,000 pesos!  That works out to 2,966 COP/USD.)

Walking out the door of the apt I found a brand new 20,000 peso note on the floor.  Lucky me!

We left the apt at 7pm and caught a taxi to Gloria’s house - Teresa’s friend from the gym when it was in Confama.

It is in a gated community across the street from the restaurant Chicago’s.

We sat on their back patio with her husband Sergio and their poodle Luna.  Her husband was a pilot for Avianca and some other airline that sounded like LAN so he spoke English.  He said I was the first person he’s spoken English with in the past 10 years but he did very well.

I learned from him that an ocean pipe broke yesterday and the beaches on San Andres island are fouled by black water.  He also informed me that Necocli is on the Atlantic side not the Pacific – no wonder I couldn’t find it on my Colombia Tourism map.  He said Viva Colombia is a low cost airline and you need to pay extra for everything so he recommended Teresa use Avianca for her trip to San Andres and that I pay for it by putting money into Laura’s Bancolombia account.

At 10:15 they invited me inside to pray.  He turned on the radio and we participated with the broadcast.  They repeated some prayers and gave everyone a tambourine and we said “ven ven” (come come) many times in a prayer/song/chant.

We left at 10:45 and were back at the apt by 11:15.  I didn’t want to take my melatonin and wait an hour before going to bed so I just took my sleeping pills and was in bed before midnight.  It maybe took me 20 minutes or so to fall asleep but I didn’t awaken until 5:30. 

T-shirt of the day: Rabbit cuteness.