#162 Medellín & Buenos Aires
So … just finished 2 weeks in Medellin. It was great but I got really buried in stuff while I was there. It was good to be back. I ended up staying at a place, the Novotel El Tesoro, one of the anchor points for a very upscale mall. The hotel room was nice. One of the nicest I’ve ever stayed in. See the pictures. However, the location left a lot to be desired. If you just want to stay and do everything within the mall, that’s great. And there is a lot to do with a lot of restaurants. But it is far away from my favored areas of Poblado and Laureles and the traffic coming back and leaving is quite bad I found. So, in addition to some issues I had with service in the hotel, I will not be staying there again.
Very clean and simple, and lots of room. I loved it.
Thankfully, I was able to go to see my physical therapist. I never really fully recovered from my back episode a couple of months ago in the Philippines. I had not realized how much pain I was in until she worked on me. The very next day I almost bounded out of bed. It felt miraculous to not be in so much pain finally.
So, after two weeks in Medellin, off to Buenos Aires. Copa is really a very nice airline. Pilots are a tad aggressive, but good, and the equipment is relatively new and kept in very good repair. Quite by chance as I was sitting in Tocumen airport, I saw a Qatar Airlines flight arrive. I need to check that. That may be my new route of choice to get to Medellin. Doha to Panama City, then over to Copa to get to Medellin.
Copa Long Haul Business Class
The airport in Panama City as a brand-new terminal, terminal 2. It is evident that they only opened it very recently, because there are a lot of works still going on and the signage is spotty at best, but it is so much better than the old terminal.
Tocúmen Terminal 2
A seven hour flight to Buenos Aires that arrived at 6 in the morning, and I have to say that that is the fastest I have ever gotten through Buenos Aires airport. 20 minutes from gangway to taxi. Mainly because I was the very first person going through immigration. Normally there is a line of at least 50 to 100 people when you get there.
And all of a sudden, it is winter. Not a horribly bad winter but the mornings are close to the freezing point of water (see how I avoided the issue with Fahrenheit versus Celsius?). However, my good friend Max, who had all of my stuff from when I fled Buenos Aires at the start of COVID, had arranged to drop it off to my other good friends Veronica and Miles who run the bed and breakfast I stay in whenever I come to Buenos Aires. They are so kind. When I arrived, all the stuff had been taken out of my bag, laundered, folded, and placed in my closet. It made me feel so welcome. And on top of that, Veronica was kind enough that even though she and Miles are in the Yucatán, I’m staying at their bed and breakfast anyway. Although it does feel a little bit surreal to be the only person in the place.
I managed 40 hours of what was intended to be a 48 hour fast. I started the day before I traveled Buenos Aires, and doing that while traveling was tough. Snacks everywhere, especially in the business class lounge, and people eating nice food next year where you Avoid seeing and smelling it, but I did manage. But when I arrived at my bed and breakfast, the two women who will take care of me while I’m here, had a nice breakfast prepared and it would’ve been very rude of me to have said no. 😊 I actually do feel vaguely better after doing it but I think next time I need to do the full 48 hours, possibly even 72 hours.
Well, after swearing up and down that I would not use Air B&B again, I found a place in Laureles in Medellin that I’m going to try. It really does look very nice, and it is still cheaper than a Marriott. Once again, we shall see. It is my favorite part of town there is no doubt. And if I am there, then I don’t have to keep taking taxis back and forth across the city.
The main reason I am here in Buenos Aires is to move along the paperwork for my Argentinian passport. Stay tuned for updates about that. My St. Kitts passport is still in the works. All was approved by the St. Kitts office of Henley Global, so the next step is whether or not St. Kitts Citizenship Investment Unit will actually approve. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Well, that is all for the moment. The only other note that I have to add is that my Spanish has really improved, even though there are times when I feel like an absolute moron, because I can’t remember some basic grammatical structure or my vocabulary fails me. As an application to see if I can seriously expand my vocabulary. It really is only of limited use (in my opinion) for speaking and grammatical structures, but for vocabulary, it is difficult to beat. My goal is an additional 800 words by the end of the month.