Tuesday with Bill

23 July 2019 15:46

Based on time stamp, I am not in class. I sent the school and email this morning about the issue yesterday and so far all I have gotten back was a automatic response that they got my email. I’m not sure if they will say something to Emily at class or not. 
I’m okay with not going to class, last week went well with Karen and I would have been okay if I had another teacher like her, that could speak English well. 
Instead of class I walked with Emily to the Exito (Walmart type place) where we parted ways. She is used to doing a lot on her own in foreign countries. I was able to get money, do some shopping from our list and then walked back to the apartment. 

I swept and mopped since lint is more prolific than Emily’s hair here in Colombia. I’m not sure where it all comes from but I sweep a lot of it. 

I also scheduled our tour to one of the national parks, aviario barut. It should be a good trip. Aley, our guide from the other day only speaks Spanish so I had to use the few words I do know and google translate with a spotty connection. It worked out though. Emily and I are looking forward to some green space tomorrow. The city has been good, we are feeling pretty comfortable getting around, there has been plenty to keep us occupied, but not much green space. What we do get is usually a dumping area or a place for the men, policia included to use as a bathroom.  Last night we were walking by and there was a large police presence and I said maybe they are flushing out the homeless or ruffians but as they were coming out of the trees you could tell that was not what they had been doing. 

This morning Emily and I tried to walk the whole wall of the old city. We got to a point where we had to go down and it was by the naval museum so we side tripped into it, it was neat to see. There was a man that offered to be a guide for a 20, most of the information is only in Spanish. We took him up on it but had to bail on him as he was a windy fellow and a British couple had joined us shortly after we started and the lady was as windy if not more. We gave him a ten and Emily told them she had class so we were going to move on. We got to see everything and they had barely moved along. It wasn’t like we zipped though either since we had to stop and play on the interactive exhibits. I like the models of the city at all the museums including this one, but the good stuff was upstairs and was life sized. I about gave Emily a heart attack or two pushing buttons on the submarine exhibit! Those alarms are loud!! I recommend stopping by. We tried to get back on the wall but it only went a short ways and we had to turn around and go back down. We did a little shopping and got Emily a mug she had seen the other day she really liked but wouldn’t buy. It should hold some tea. 

We never did find the wall again, we found the neighborhood from last night and to the area by The Clock Pub. We got a picture! 
We did a big loop looking for something to eat and decided on this Cuban bar and restaurant. I had my first Cuban sandwich, it was delicious!! All others will probably fail in comparison unless I get one in Cuba. I was a neat place. They sold cigars there from Cuba and Colombia. It was a really cool vibe there. Did I tell you how good the sandwich was?! 

It has been overcast today, it started out with a rainstorm. I think we are still going to try and swim after Emily gets back from class. 

Be sure to leave comments or questions if you have them! We enjoy seeing what you have to say and if there are some questions we can find answers to while we are here we will definitely try! 

I also will try and keep you informed about our gear and other helpful travel information. I will see if Emily can add some links to the products we use. 

One of the things I have not mentioned yet it the LocTote bag we have been using. LocTote Industrial Bag Co. we have a small grey one, I believe the 3l sport bag. I love the idea this bag. It is made of slash proof material and the ropes are cut resistant. The cool thing is that the bag locks. You can lock it to things. It does have a waterproof pocket inside and it also protects your credit cards and what not from being read while in the bag. Overall a fabulous bag for traveling. It is comfortable to wear, Emily likes it better than her old backpack she used for carrying stuff around when out and about. 
We both think the company needs to do a dry bag for those who want to do snorkeling or SCUBA diving. A dry bag would be good to either take under with you or you could lock it to the boat. Getting pounded by water on the way back it would have been soaked even inside, the outside is water repellent but the rope straps wick water to the inside. The pocket does stay dry though. Overall a great bag, easy to use. I would like the padlock that comes with it to be spring loaded so it lessens the chance of accidental lock combination being changed. Some may want a different lock altogether though. 

The motorcycles here have such tiny motors. Maybe 125cc. They have a lot of scooters too. The ones that aren’t electric may have same size motors. 
There are motorcycle taxis, the school says not to take them due to the danger. They do give you a helmet, some wear it some don’t. Our driver said there are motorcycle accidents everyday, there are no rules for motorcycles. They do u turns and lane splitting wherever they want and some have lights some don’t. Some pass on the right. Taxis really can’t talk too much they think there is a third lane on all the two lane roads for them. They pass when they want a lot of the time as well. The traffic is not a crazy as Peru but they drivers are friendly to each other most the time. I’m not sure why Americans are such angry drivers. The taxi’s tires are so small and they must not have free air here as a lot of vehicles need air in their tires. 

19:13
Had a short swim after Emily got back from class. Pool was a bit cool since there wasn’t any sun. It is surprising how fast when the sun is out that you get used to the cool water in the pool. It sort of works the same here for the shower. We get extremely hot water to the sinks but the shower doesn’t get any. In fact when you turn on the hot water side it gets colder. I always just stand with the water running before I get in and that seems to help. But once you are showering it doesn’t seem too bad. The maintenance guy said the tile has to be removed to fix the handle since it falls off, they should fix that and the hot water. It looks like that tile has been off before. 

Not much else going on tonight, we have that tour in the morning and we pretty active all day so I will do some laundry and relax!