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******
Friday July 13, 2018
Yeah, I didn't realize it was Friday the 13th when I booked the trip to Pereira to meet with my friend Tom, then he called and said he wasn't going to make it due to a doctor's appointment. But we decided not to be superstitious and to get this show on the road...
Pereira is a city in the mountains north of here - from Wikipedia:
Pereira is the capital city of the Colombian department of Risaralda. It is located in the foothills of the Andes in a coffee-producing area of Colombia officially known as the "Coffee Axis". Pereira, alongside the rest of the Coffee Axis, form part of UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the "Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia". It is the most populated city in the Coffee Axis and the second-most populated city in the Paisa region, after Medellín. Pereira is also part of the Central West Metropolitan Area, which has 709,322 residents and is composed of Pereira and the neighboring cities of Dosquebradas and La Virginia. ~~~~
Pereira was also heavily damaged in the 1999 earthquake that leveled nearby Armenia.
We set the alarm for 4:30am and were up at 3:30 just to check that we hadn't missed it. We were catching a cab at 5:25 because the internet said the bus came by at 5:50 (which was correct). It is a good thing that Cristina knew that we would catch it along the highway or I would be still fuming at the bus station... Our niece, Natalia, met us on the highway, and came along in case some translations would be necessary. The Internet said we would arrive around 8:20 in Pereira, or 3 hours.... We needn't have worried because we were there in exactly 2 hours so we had a coffee at the bus station then caught a cab to the shopping center opposite our destination and had more coffee.
Our appointment was with a facilitator named Luz Dary who charges $52 to handle the Visa application and it will arrive, by mail, at my home in about a week. She was referred to us by Tom who had a good experience so we thought a quick bus ride to Pereira was a better idea than an overnight to Bogota.
Our appointment was at 9:15am and everyone was right on the button. I was so confident because had been so careful to do all the documentation according to the External Affairs webpage and following Luz's instructions. That was short-lived as only 2 of the 3 documents that we had notarized just yesterday came out of the folder... I realized that I had been interrupted in my scanning process the afternoon before by my lovely wife and had left the last document on the platen of my scanner... So we just printed another, signed it and walked 4 blocks to the nearest Notary. Then they didn't like my idea of a Passport photo so we went to the next block to get new ones taken... Then all was good. Like Ecuador, once I get my new Visa I can go into Cali and order my new Colombian Cedula (identity card).
It took us only a little over 1.5 hours to come back, which went really quickly because I was engrossed in one of my spy novels. Then we had a chinese food lunch at La Herradura shopping center and walked home. The puppies were very happy to see us.
Pereira is a city in the mountains north of here - from Wikipedia:
Pereira is the capital city of the Colombian department of Risaralda. It is located in the foothills of the Andes in a coffee-producing area of Colombia officially known as the "Coffee Axis". Pereira, alongside the rest of the Coffee Axis, form part of UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the "Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia". It is the most populated city in the Coffee Axis and the second-most populated city in the Paisa region, after Medellín. Pereira is also part of the Central West Metropolitan Area, which has 709,322 residents and is composed of Pereira and the neighboring cities of Dosquebradas and La Virginia. ~~~~
Pereira was also heavily damaged in the 1999 earthquake that leveled nearby Armenia.
We set the alarm for 4:30am and were up at 3:30 just to check that we hadn't missed it. We were catching a cab at 5:25 because the internet said the bus came by at 5:50 (which was correct). It is a good thing that Cristina knew that we would catch it along the highway or I would be still fuming at the bus station... Our niece, Natalia, met us on the highway, and came along in case some translations would be necessary. The Internet said we would arrive around 8:20 in Pereira, or 3 hours.... We needn't have worried because we were there in exactly 2 hours so we had a coffee at the bus station then caught a cab to the shopping center opposite our destination and had more coffee.
Our appointment was with a facilitator named Luz Dary who charges $52 to handle the Visa application and it will arrive, by mail, at my home in about a week. She was referred to us by Tom who had a good experience so we thought a quick bus ride to Pereira was a better idea than an overnight to Bogota.
Our appointment was at 9:15am and everyone was right on the button. I was so confident because had been so careful to do all the documentation according to the External Affairs webpage and following Luz's instructions. That was short-lived as only 2 of the 3 documents that we had notarized just yesterday came out of the folder... I realized that I had been interrupted in my scanning process the afternoon before by my lovely wife and had left the last document on the platen of my scanner... So we just printed another, signed it and walked 4 blocks to the nearest Notary. Then they didn't like my idea of a Passport photo so we went to the next block to get new ones taken... Then all was good. Like Ecuador, once I get my new Visa I can go into Cali and order my new Colombian Cedula (identity card).
It took us only a little over 1.5 hours to come back, which went really quickly because I was engrossed in one of my spy novels. Then we had a chinese food lunch at La Herradura shopping center and walked home. The puppies were very happy to see us.
I hope you enjoy the pictures. That was the day’s excitement.
Al
******
© All my work is COPYRIGHT protected and may
not be used in any way without purchase, or without my permission.
If you want to borrow a picture to share with family and friends, Facebook
or whatever, at least PLEASE give me credit for the photo.
NOTE that you may click on any photo for an ENLARGED VIEW.
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| Another third-world shopping mall |
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| My helpers to get my Visa app sent in |
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| Our destination is in the basement part |
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| More third-world architecture |
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| Simon Bolivar Square, of course |
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| The cathedral is always on the main square, just like Europe |
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| The Naked Bolivar statue |
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| I believe that is a small flag he is holding in the fight for Gran Colombia |
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| The girls, with Naked Bolivar behind them |
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| Catching the buseta back to Tulua |
