Souvenir Photo Studio, by Al Bourassa: Friday October 25, 2019 Manizales Day 1

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Friday October 25, 2019

I spent all day Sunday working on the photos to be able to bring you these Blogs....

Friday I was up early for my trip to Manizales with the vet John Faber Rojas in his brother's NGV Renault. I was shocked that Cristina was getting dressed before 6am so I asked her where she was going. She said Manizales... She had already made arrangements for the dogs, etc so I didn't have the heart to leave her behind. John was late, as usual.

Running on Natural Gas is cheap, but the car is underpowered that way. It is nice to have the option to switch to gasoline when the NGV runs out.

It was pretty foggy in our area as we left but the drive was calm and picturesque. John does a little prayer ritual every time we re-enter the car as he is a type of healing shaman too.

He was deathly afraid of getting a speeding ticket so he obeyed every sign and was a courteous driver. However, once we hit the cities of Pereira, then Manizales, he became another Colombian demon driver. The transformation was shocking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manizales

Thanks to my WAZE program in my phone we arrived at our nice Mountain Hostel easily. Because Manizales is built on mountainsides, the roads are not straight, and mostly up or down, Brakes wear out quickly here.

Our friend Tom walked down from his place, we dumped our luggage, grabbed the cameras and drove over to his place. He is on the 10th floor of a lovely building and the 11th floor is the upper terrace with magnificent views. I think that I even caught volcano Nevado del Ruiz (altitude 5,321m, 17,457 ft) smoking away. It is about 32 kms away so Tom isn't too concerned, he lived in San Francisco for many years, but his building is on rollers and it sways with even the slightest tremor.

Tom has a small rescue poodle called Hank who is timid and always looks unhappy. Tom also has LeeLee, the rescue Siamese cat that we procured for him, and who was sterilized and inoculated by Dr John.

We went for a chinese food lunch that was superb just down the block. Then we jumped in the car and went to an area called Chipre that has beautiful views. We vowed to come back in the early morning after we try to get a good view of the volcano.

Then Tom had an appointment at the KIA dealership where he wanted to buy a car and establish credit. Typically, they tried to force him into a car and that did not please him at all.

We left Tom there and walked down to a nearby 5-level mall with lots of high-end stores that could afford the rent. There were lots of people milling about, and lots of amazing animated papier-mache figures from some movie or another. We got soaked walking there, and so did Tom, later.

Manizales is high up, so it has the cool weather I like. But it is also in the mountains so a person tends to get a dose of all four seasons in a day. Everything is usually damp and the foliage is a vivid green.

Somehow, Tom could not reach me on my cel to find us, and he was wet, cold and upset, so he went home. I did not get a call from him until we were on the top floor and he was already home. So we walked back to the KIA dealership, got the car and John wanted to go to a music store in front of the old cathedral so we went downtown. He was looking to buy a violin for his son.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Rosary,_Manizales

The cathedral is basic concrete but ugly-lovely because of the spires, etc. It is the second tallest church in South America according to Tom,.... third according to Wikipedia. The inside was unlit, gloomy and unimpressive so I took no photos inside. However there is a statue on a pedestal outside called "El Bolivar Condor" which is intriguing to say the least. The pedestal itself is a marvel of artistry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-S9b_H0QhA

It seemed that every statue in Manizales was mandated to be anatomically correct, as you will see in the photos below, and in the video above.

Later we found our way back to Tom's place where we parked the car for the night. They have a nice skytram that costs about 60c to ride which would have spectacular views but Cristina did not want to ride it. The glass appeared to have a blue tinge which would have affected photos too.

Walking to our hostel we found the perfect fast food place that had shawarmas, pizza, hamburgers, fries, hot dogs, sausages, and more. It was heaven-sent just for me. The only problem was that we had to buy our beers next door.

Back at the hostel, john and I dug out our laptops and I showed John the neat free download program called PhotoScape. Because he is a novice photographer, I have the Sony (that I donated to him) set to shoot on JPEG mode. He enjoyed playing with PhotoScape to improve his photos. He has a keen eye and takes a lot of shots, even embarrassing ones of me.

The kids running the hostel were from France! It was nice to have hot water in our room too.

About 9:30 we went to bed. I had forgotten to bring my Melatonin or even a small fan for white noise so it was deadly quiet and I did not sleep.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. That was the day’s excitement.

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