20K and a Year Away

We have gone to the next apartment! It was a little more difficult to get around and do things at the last place. The neighborhood was not good after dark. I really liked going for walks there in the morning but was pretty bored at night since we could not go out and wander around – which was a bummer because I thought we had people to come with us… more on that below. We used Uber to its fullest and had more ice cream from the store next door than we could stand because there really wasn’t much else to do to cool off. The place was ok with fans pointed directly at us, but you could not move if you wanted to stay cool. We would win at the quiet game. HA!

Another reason I am happy to be out of there is the kind of thing you don’t think you will have to put up with, but a good reminder that it can happen. Remember the cop I mentioned a few weeks ago? Well, it turns out that he is a schmuck. He spent the whole time we were there trying to chat me up and get in our space in completely uninvited ways. I made it clear to him that his company was not wanted nor requested, but he did not fully comprehend and kept trying. He even asked me if there was any way I could help him get a visa to go to the US. Seriously… jeez. Up until the very last night we were there he tried to make his move. So glad to be out of there. It is a shame that he showed up. It would have been a lot more comfortable if he hadn’t, for sure.

Luckily, we had other places to go and people to see! Our local friends took us under their wing and picked us up to go for day trips. We finally got to go to Casco Viejo, Cinta Costera, and the Amador Causeway. They picked us up last Sunday at 10:30 am and dropped us off at 5:30 pm. We covered a lot of ground! We also got some ceviche and fried fish. Pretty tasty. Axel liked the fried fish but was not thrilled by the ceviche.

What are some things I have learned about this leg of our trip? Well, first, you need a car for La Chorrera. In Santa Fe, there really were only a couple places to go so you didn’t need a car. In El Nazareno, La Chorrera, unless you want to spend a ton of time on crowded buses – which is a no-go right now – you either need to rent a car or know someone who can ferry you around when you need it. There is not much to do in this area, either. In addition to not being able to go out and walk in the evening, it seems we were always making plans to go out of town to do things. The city is big and spread out, but with not much to do for entertainment. I think the mall is a big deal here, but we don’t need to buy anything, so that isn’t much fun for us. It has been great to visit friends, but in the future, if we come back, we will stay closer to them and have a car to go out of town. As a matter of fact, there is a house right next door to Dayra that they said we can use whenever we want. Hmmmmm…

We are in our last apartment of this leg of the journey. It is at Coronado beach. I decided to get an Uber from El Nazareno rather than try to fight with the buses and transfers with our two huge backpacks. It was $25 – totally worth it. We are on the 9th floor. It is a 1-bedroom with a sofa bed in the living room. It is kind of nice for us to finally have rooms apart. Axel says the sofa bed is comfy. My bed is fine, with a pretty decent view.

The beach is about a block away and there is a swimming pool on the 2nd floor. We checked them both out today. There is also a game room on the 3rd floor that we might check out this weekend.

This place is very different from where we just came from. This location caters to foreigners and people “with money” according to Pedro and his sister. The prices at the restaurants right by the apartment reflect that. There is no bakery I can just walk to to grab bread in the morning. Everything is at the entrance off the highway – a bit of a hike from where we are staying. It is more like home, in some ways, and still not quite the same. We hit the supermarket when we got here and spent $100 on basics, but didn’t find a whole lot of familiar products.

Some that we did buy, that we learned from experience we did not want to play around with, were Heinz ketchup and Kraft mayo. Some things will just not work – and the local ketchup and mayo did not do it for us. We also found Italian sausage for pasta. It was not exactly like what we made at home, but very, very close – and it was delicious.

Tomorrow, I will make a trip to the shopping center to score some new chanclas. Mine are about to break and I will be needing them to go to the beach. Every… Single… Day.