Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
I watched the first 20 minutes of the Today show.
As I left the apt it became quickly obvious that today is
also Ash Wednesday.
I was able to get a free adn
newspaper. One of the articles stated
that 10 of the metro stations were not functioning yesterday. I’m sure that contributed greatly to Teresa’s
inability to get a taxi last night.
I did most of my exercises in an hour and a half.
We had lunch again at La Castilla Parilla.
I left the apt at 1:45, paid the Une bill at Cotrafa, and
bought a bunch of flowers at the flower store.
While inside I ran into the gringo Richard that I had met last October
thru Chuck. He was lamenting, not
seriously, the $5 cost for a dozen roses today.
After dropping off the flowers at the apt I left (2:30) and
walked downtown where a Sabaneta bus was just leaving but I caught it.
That’s 2,100 pesos.
Traffic as usual was slow through the Gold Mile and about 40
minutes later I could see the top of the San
Diego
Unfortunately, now the bus was on a long
bridge and the driver wasn’t about to stop. He let me off on the other side but the walk
back only cost me about 5 minutes. I
made a quick trip to the restroom and back outside asked a couple taxi drivers
where I catch the bus for the airport.
They confirmed that it was where I thought it was. Buses come about every 20-30 minutes so I
must have just missed one. In the
meantime I chatted briefly with a young man with a large backpack from Switzerland Bogota
and Medellin and was heading to the airport to
fly to Santa Marta
As everyone got off the bus we paid the 9,500 peso fee so it
only cost me 11,600 pesos ($4) to get to the airport and it took a little less than 2 1/2 hours.
I stopped at the only available bathroom stall downstairs at
the bowl had no seat and it was filled with piss and I couldn’t see how to
flush it. I went up a level and found a
clean restroom with toilet seats and toilet paper. Yay!
Back downstairs at the arrivals area I waited 10 minutes to
see that their plane landed at 5:06, 15 minutes early. (It seems that the COPA flights always arrive
early from Panama City
Jim and Joan came out about 20 minutes later, the guy handed
us off to another driver and he took us outside to the parking lot to his
car. He easily put the 2 large suitcases
and carryon in the trunk and we were off.
Traffic was heavy through the Gold Mill and we finally
arrived at the apt just before 7pm. Jim
presented me with all the goodies from the States I had asked for: a roll of duct tape,
4 bags of salted in the shell peanuts, 4 bottles of root beer, a roll of Glide
floss, 2 pairs of warm white socks, 2 bars of Lava soap (for Wilson), 2 tubes
of travel toothpaste, a roll of lint remover, and a plastic ice cube tray. I put most of the stuff away and about 7:30
we walked the 100 yards to La Casita Parilla.
Jim had a nice talk with the owners and Joan gave me a lesson on how to
use Facebook.
Jim and Teresa had ribs and Joan and I had the chicken
breast. They also had a bottle of wine
that we had ordered and Teresa and I had soft drinks. We took our time, finally leaving about 9:30
after paying a bill of about 150mil ($50), including a takeout order for Laura
who soon returned from her drivers lesson.
We walked downtown, I showed them the city hall area, and we
stopped at Bartollos where they all
had a beer and I had a café con leche.
We were back at the apt by 11pm. I took my melatonin, read for 30 minutes,
took my sleeping pill and was soon asleep.
T-shirt of the day: Suffer now. Summit
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