Sunday, August 18, 2024

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, got up twice during the night, finally waking/ getting up at 7:30.

I checkmated ONEIPAMETATO1453 on the 24^th move increasing my rating to 1579.

I googled Carmen de Viboral and was surprised twe’re supposed to go to the north terminal when it’s southeast of Medellin.

Teresa suggested we invite her mother to join us but I didn’t like the idea taking her someplace we don’t know firsthand. We decided we’ll invite her and go to El Retiro.

At 10:15 we were in the porteria waiting for MT to arrive by taxi. I guess something went wrong because the next thing we’re doing is walking to MT’s complex while keeping an eye out for her in a taxi.

We found her at her porteria and quickly found a taxi to take us to terminal sur. By then it was 11am and we’ve missed the 10:40 bus. We bought round-trip tickets to El Retiro for the 11:40 bus. We stopped at a kiosk and bought some snacks.

There were lots of seats available as the bus left on time at 11:40. Leaving Medellin on Las Palmas traffic was crawling. After 10-15 minutes our driver turned off an exit ramp and headed on a side street up into the hills. When he got back on Las Palmas we had no traffic for about 5 minutes. Then we hit the same bumper to bumper traffic. Teresa said it must be because this is a Puente (holiday weekend). Note to self: Don’t try to leave town on a holiday weekend.

It was 1pm when Terresa commented that we should be near El Retiro. I wasn’t so sure as I thought I recognized a small strip mall on our right. I said we haven’t even reached Indian mall yet. Change of plans: we got off across from Indiana mall and walked across the street to it.

They had an arts & crafts fair going on under tents at ground level. We first made a stop at the restrooms then I guided them up and across the street to a restaurant named El Corral that my brother and I ate at 5-6 years ago.

It was 1:30 when we sat down and they ordered some type of special chicken and I the steak pimiento, a baked potato and a Coke.

Our food was delicious although pieces of my meat were on the rare side instead of the medium-well I prefer. The total came to 266,155 pesos ($66).

I went to the other end of the mall to Santa Leña for coffee while the ladies went down to check out the fair.

I had a latte and the milk design on top looked like a little bear (Go Bears!) instead of the usual leaf.

The ladies joined me around 3:45 but they didn’t have anything to eat or drink. Teresa worked some on her art project while I spent my time on my phone.

Just after 5pm I made my final trip to the restroom, paid the bill and we walked down to the highway. We walked around the corner towards Medellin (almost stepped on a dead rat) where we waited in the shade for a bus. The first two buses that stopped by weren’t from El Retiro and wouldn’t take out tickets. The next bus was a blue El Retiro bus and we got on and thankfully a couple guys got up and gave their seats to the ladies. I stood up and held on which wasn’t too bad because we never hit heavy traffic so it was a straight shot to the Exposiciones metro station.

We took the metro to Envigado station where I took this photo of the moon coming over the eastern mountains.

We quickly caught a taxi, dropped MT off by La Bahia and continued on to our apt.

 

FUNNY SIGNS