Ports and things

Beautiful. Glorious. Wonderful day. I woke up and went for some exercise. Got back, had breakfast, then played soccer on the beach. Relaxed on the beach for several hours and then chucked rocks with a dog. The same one who sat on me last time I was here. I taught him ¨drop it!¨ too which was kind of fun. I think my arm's gonna be sore tomorrow but I loved every minute of it. I'm learning that I like sharing. I don't buy anything anymore--except clothes--that I won't share. Food, shampoo, sunblock, wine, shoes even. Yep. That sums up my purchases for the last 4 months.

Then I walked the streets with the man I could marry. We went to the port and there were seals! They look like walruses only without the tusks. Then we went to two museums, one a nautical about a battle between Chilé and Perú. The battle of the Esmeralda. It was a wooden fighter destroyed by a Perúvian battleship but held out for almost 4 hours and never surrended its flag. And a regional museum with seal fetuses, llama bones, Chiléan coins, weavings. The money here is colorful. Fine, the bills are full of colors most places, but the coins. They have color here. The 100 cent piece is red, just being phased out this year for a silver and gold one. Oh, and a funny thing about Chilé, they pronounce Chilé as Tilé here. How you say it is supposed to reflect your social status. If you're educated you say Tilé. If not, it's apparently Shilé...

Then I got a message that Alejandro (my Colombian friend from Baños) got detained in Quito. Crap. A 36 year-old man, he can't seem to get it together. Then again he never had a decent example. Still it's hard to understand. I kept telling him to figure out what he wanted to do in life, come up with a plan. The same advice I need to be heeding! Well, I have a plan, it's just in the infancy stages of implementation...Anyway he's living in a country where he can't work without permission, doesn't have permission, and every three months makes the border crossing into Colombia, obtains a fake (Colombians are good at doing the bad things...) 3 month pass and returns to Ecuador to work illegally. What kind of life is that? I know, who am I to judge? I guess it just seems like there has to be some sort of easier way to make a living. And maybe even in Colombia??

So, I would love to buy a place in Lima, and one in Iquique. I need to check into fares for flights to see the likelihood of renting them States-side. Also need to drum up a quick $300,000 in liquidatable cash. Hmm...