Saturday, December 23, 2023

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, got up once at 3:30, finally waking/getting up at 6:15.

An hour before our departure Bryan changed our car and driver on us. I’m not very pleased with that. Manuel picked us up when we were ready to leave at noon.

He didn’t seem to go our usual highway route to the tunnel but took traffic packed back roads through local towns. We arrived at Parador Rancho Alegre, our usual almojabana stop on the other side of the tunnel, by 1:15 and quickly found a table as a couple were leaving. Teresa had sancocho and I had calentao with scrambled eggs, an almojabana and a café con leche. Manuel had calentao with beef and a juice.

The total came to something like 80mil.

We continued on another 15 minutes to San Jernonimo. The town is nothing to speak of and we went another 15 minutes into the countryside the last 100 yards or so on a dirt road. I paid Manuel the promised 230mil.

It’s hot:

The hotel isn’t anything special, no more than what is shown on their website. All payments must be made in cash or transfer into their account so I paid the remaining balance of 2,200,000 pesos, which includes breakfast. I have another million or so in cash which hopefully will cover the remainder of our meals. I would call the place quiet except for the nonstop Colombian music piped through multiple speakers.

This is their menu for lunch and supper:

And these are their serving hours

There are only a couple other families here so it’s obviously not a popular holiday spot for Colombians. A couple more families arrived later.

It was about 3pm or so when I realized I left my toiletry bag back in our master bathroom which means I’m lacking all my medications, my toothbrush, our toothpaste, my hairbrush, my shaver and other things I haven’t figured out yet. Teresa didn’t seem too upset when she heard the news.

She got some sun and I read some in my new book on Kindle. At 5:30 on our way back to our 2^nd floor room Teresa pointed out an area where she suggested we could walk. I pointed out an area a little higher up, dark clouds. Fifteen minutes later we had a downpour that lasted about 30 minutes.

Supper wasn’t anything special, the typical Colombian meal.

At one point I asked Teresa what time we’re going to sleep and she gave me a dirty look which I interpreted as we’ll be staying up late. At 9:30 she told me she was tired and we returned to our room. Music was still playing loudly as I went to bed at 10pm.

 

JOKES, EXPLAINED, UNNECESSARILY