Monday, May 9, 2016

Easton and I headed out to El Centro to use the wifi at Melatte’s coffee shop. I’m sure there has to be coffee and wifi closer to us be we haven’t found it yet. Heidi is still sick so she is staying home and organizing things in the house as she can.

It’s not a bad walk from our place to El Centro, a little under 30 minutes. When we arrived there were only a couple people there and we grabbed a two person table next to some wall outlets. I ordered us two café con leches.

We tried their lattes yesterday and they were so sweet we couldn’t even drink them. And that was after we had the barista add an extra shot.The juice that Ecuadorians make is super sweet as well. I am beginning to believe that they prefer their drinks this way.

Easton has to call Avianca and book his tickets to Rio. Because of the earthquake and everything since then, this got back burnered. Once again he tried to book online and once again the reservation failed after using two different credit cards.

So he called Avianca. He made the reservation again. This is not a fast process with them. He was on the phone for at least 30 minutes. He was told it would take one to two hours for the transaction to go through, so he would not know if his credit card worked while on the phone.

We stayed at the coffee shop using the wifi fo a while longer and soon he had an email from Avianca stating his creditr card failed and to call them. First he called his bank as he had done everytime before when the charge failed, and again he was told that everything was fine on their end. The charge would be approved. Then he called Avianca and after an hour on the phone it still wasn’t going through.

Frustrated, he hung up. After a couple more back and forth emails with the bank, he called Avianca again. After another long phone call with them, it appears he has the reservation made. He still has not his confirmation email, but he hasn’t received an email stating his card failed either. Hopefully it all worked and is in process.

Easton and I had lunch at a place called Chipotle, which isn’t like the restaurant chain in the US. It was a narrow hole in the wall that served Mexican food, beer, and mixed drinks. It’s 3 pm and the large Club and Pilsner beers are only 2 bucks until 4pm, so we each ordered one of those. The food was decent and not too expensive, so maybe we will come back sometime with Heidi.

Heidi asked us to bring back some more baskets to help her organize things. We headed to the San Francisco market in the middle of El Centro, but no basket weavers to be found today. It’s late and they probably already packed it up and headed home.

Before we headed home we tried to find a store we have passed in a cab before, thinking it may have baskets, furniture, and housewares. We walked for a bit but we couldn’t find it. It is starting to rain and I said lets grab a cab and head home. So we flagged one down and were home in no time.

Something is up with Keeper. She has periods where she shakes while she breathes. She hasn’t been eating normal the last few days and seems listless. We are going to find a vet tomorrow. We have had her 10 years and she was only sick twice in that time. Since we have moved to Ecuador it seems like her body has had a hard time adjusting.

Chau