Ambulance Collides with Bus

Today I rode the Bus Ruta 302 Circular Sur  Izquierda. I got off at a park at the south end of the Airport. It's a fun place to go because you can watch airplanes land and you can eat chuzos de cerdo (pork on a skewer):

After that I got back on the bus, which loops around the city and takes me back to the neighborhood where I live. 

The tiny microphone in my camera wasn't very good at capturing the mambo music playing in the bus. We also passed these mosaic pyramids in the median of La Avenida Oriental (Eastern Avenue.)

But as we maneuvered through traffic, an ambulance crashed into us! It wasn't a bad crash and no one was hurt– but if anyone had, it would have been convenient that there was an ambulance. 

The bus driver gave the paramedics a stern talking-to.

Then she looked at the part of the ambulance that contacted the bus.

Then they looked at the part of the bus that contacted the ambulance. The police came and stopped traffic. Everyone got mad and honked their horns and yelled. 

People on the bus were impatient and didn't know what to do.

Then the paramedics got back in their ambulance and left.

This is the bus. The bus driver flagged down another bus that was driving the same route and all the passengers switched to that bus. This is where the crash took place:

View Bus Crash in a larger map

Boléro

I discovered a secret place where one can listen to a vast collection of Bolero music on vinyl, that was recorded all over Latin America during the middle decades of the 20th century; Where Jorge, the bartender, will talk your ear off, telling you intricate stories about each and every track. It's called El Bolero Bar. Also, by reading this article I learned how to embed google maps into this blog! This is where you can find El Bolero Bar:


View Bolero Bar in a larger map

But I should warn people that even with this map, the place is hard to find; in order to get there, you'll think that you're entering the garage of a giant condominium complex.

Before last night, the only time I had heard the word Bolero was in reference to the 1928 orchestral piece by Maurice Ravel, which is actually spelled Boléro:

As it turns out, Bolero Music is also a genre of slow dance music that began in Spain and became popular in Cuba and some other places in the Americas. Most of the records Jorge played for me didn't sound at all like Ravel's piece.

Refrigerators vs. Water Heater

Here's an outdated and partially completed blog post:

Hot showers are a luxury that I don't want to do without unless there's a good reason. Carlos, who serves as the boss of those living in this apartment will not allow me to run the electric water heater for more 10 minutes, which is enough to create about 30 seconds worth of lukewarm water. After that the water is icy cold. Once, when Carlos wasn't home, I ran the water heater for an hour. I was able to take a hot shower for a full 7 minutes! Carlos claims that running the water heater for longer than 10 minutes at a time (how frequently he doesn't specify) would be very expensive– resulting in an energy bill of as much as $500,000 COP ($284.25 USD.) But I don't think that's possible. Also, he runs two separate refrigerators 24 hours a day– so I would think if he's concerned about energy costs, that would be the first thing to consider. When I try to talk to him about this, he speaks so quickly that I can't understand everything he says– but the gist is that I should be grateful that he has put a roof over my head and how dare I ask for anything else. According to his rhetoric, if I don't understand each and every word he says, then I must not understand electricity or the way it's billed in Colombia.

For the time being I've accepted that trying to talk to Carlos about this is much less pleasant than resigning myself to taking cold showers. But I felt compelled to investigate the issue and show my findings to the internet.

This is the badge I found on the water heater. I think the important information is that it uses 800 Watts. Assuming I run it for an hour each day (realistically I would run it less) I did the following math:

I'm not sure how much they charge for electricity in Colombia (Carlos hasn't shown me any previous bills), but Wikipedia  has a list of how much they charge in other countries. In order for 24.8kWh to cost $500,000 COP, the utility company would have to charge $20,161.29 COP per kilowatt hour. That's 20 times more than the country Wikipedia lists as charging the highest rate for electricity, which is Tonga.

but I still don't think that's a good reason to do without hot showers.

Visas

I've neglected to update for a while, but here's the latest: I'm looking to move to a different apartment and renew my tourist Visa (or get some other kind of visa that would allow me to stay longer.)

Fortunately, there's thorough, up-to-date information on this website:

http://medellinliving.com/how-to-extend-a-tourist-visa-in-medellin/

I hope to update again soon with material that's worth reading.