Monday, April 8, 2024

Last night I went to bed at 8:15, fell asleep quickly, but woke up at 3:15. I got up and took my shower then Teresa got up.

She made coffee and poured it in my gym thermos and added a little milk.

I packed up the last of my toiletries and my laptop and we were ready by 4:30 when Bryan was downstairs waiting for us.

The ride to the airport was uneventful and we arrived a little after 5am. The ride was 150mil as usual and I tipped him 10mil.

We quickly checked our 2 suitcases (20kilos for Teresa’s but 17k for mine) but then were told we had to fill out some form. I downloaded it

to my cellphone but it was a devil to complete. It wouldn’t allow me to enter Envigado or Medellin for our city and for my birthdate it didn’t have a drop down list like for the year and month and it wouldn’t accept my typing the day of the month. There were other problems but a couple nearby helped us fill it out. (I think they just filled out the same thing by the paper I saw in his hand.) I think it took about an hour with lots of moments of frustration built in.

I was starving as we sat down and ate the tortilla sandwiches with coffee.

We checked in with TSA then got in the immigration line. Teresa got in a long line for Colombians and I got in a much shorter line for foreigners. I answered a couple questions on their Bio-Mig screen and they scanned my eyes. I was through but had to wait at least 15 minutes for Teresa.

By the time we got to the gate they were boarding. (Good thing we decided to arrive 3 hours before takeoff.) We were one of the first passengers on and took our 16C & 16D seats about halfway back of the plane.

The flight was almost 2 ½ hours and as we flew over La Hispaniola the plane suddenly increased speed like we had to do a go-around or something.

The flight was nearly over when I noticed this USB charge on the back of the seat in front of us.

We landed fine and went through immigration, baggage claim and customs pretty quickly.

No one asked to see the form we filled out. ☹

Outside the airport it was chaos with lots of people in a small space hawking taxis and other rides, and people waiting to be picked up. There was supposed to be someone with a sign with my name on it to pick us up. We found a relatively quiet place off to the side and I walked up and down looking at all the signs for pickup. I asked one guy to turn around to see his sign and it had my name. He took 2 of our suitcases and guided us through the parking lot to his minivan. It was a 25-minute ride to our hotel. He dropped us off by multiple porteros and while they kept an eye on our bags we went inside to check-in. We were about 90 minutes early for check-in but it went smoothly and the guy gave us bracelets and said we could go for lunch. After lunch we got in this tram with our bags and after waiting for others we were finally on our way. The place is HUGE and they dropped off others and we were the last ones off. They took our bags up to our room and I tipped each of the guys 2 crisp $1 bills and apologized I don’t have more dollars.

Our room is very nice and open with a bedroom area, living room area and large bathroom including a bathtub. I need to take advantage of that before we leave.

There is an iron and a nice golf-sized umbrella in our room. 😊 Are they trying to warn us of something?

The resort gifted us a bottle of Dominican rum I’m taking to gift to Wilson.

We unpacked some of our stuff and walked around a bit.

This is our first view of the Caribbean sea.

Beautiful blue sea, not ugly gray like Cartagena.

There are lots of peacock roaming around.

We found ourselves in the Platinum area with restaurants only for members. We came upon a nearby restaurant El Gaucho but it was reservation only. They serve buffet breakfast and lunch but at night it’s a steakhouse.

We walked back to the lobby to have supper at the main buffet. We walked in and an employee stopped us and said I couldn’t enter with a sleeveless t-shirt. The shorts and sandals were okay but not the t-shirt. At the closest table I saw a teenager wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and a woman came in with a fancy blouse that showed more skin than I did.

As we prepared ourselves for a long walk back to our room we came upon a store selling t-shirts, 3 for $60 or 1 for $30. I bought a Punta Cana t-shirt and paid for it with my Capital One debit card.

We had supper back at the buffet. The restaurant is huge with lots of tables, lots of fish and seafood but I did manage to find something to eat. Lots of desserts including ice cream.

After, we stopped at Guest Services with a few questions and I learned how the safe works.

We stopped in a store where I charged $20 for facial pads and 2 bottles of some type of facial oil for Teresa.

Outside we took a tram back to near our building – building #26 but in the dark it wasn’t so easy to find our building #29. Finally we did, only to walk up 2 flights of stairs and our apt wasn’t there. We had to backtrack and go to the other side of the building.

I had bought a pack of Breathe Right strips and hopefully one each night will prevent me from snoring so Teresa can sleep well.

We unpacked some more and were in bed by 9:30.

 

EL ARROYO SIGNS