Medellín, Friday

Fri 1627 I do note it's Friday 13th...

Felt knackered this morning. School fairly good on the whole. Bit surprised after break to find out that some Latin American countries (not Colombia yet) are instituting a complete ban on flights from *and to* Europe (the continent) (and other places) and thus even foreigners who would not be returning will be unable to leave.

This is a bit disturbing but I must admit at the same time the idea of being forced into a kind of temporary exile is oddly exciting.

I have looked on web and details are sparse but FCO advice for Colombia says nothing about this at all and I looked at Argentina too and although it mentions it it doesn't say you should or shouldn't make an attempt to leave the country before the (currently 30 day) ban comes into effect. I guess this is pretty recent news and I will keep an eye on the situation.

Given this plus musings yesterday I am thinking it's best not to act precipitately. I did use the need to look into this as a semi-excuse (TBH I'd prefer to postpone decision anyway just in case random illness strikes over weekend) for saying I'd probably carry on at school but I wanted to let them know late Sunday/Monday morning.

I am flirting (prob said this yday) with an airbnb apartment since if I am forced to spend 7-14 days in my "home" , whether ill or not, even a small apartment with a kitchen is likely to be more comfortable than this hotel. OTOH I do like the location of this hotel and I also quite like the relative security of having reception and the fact that this means I can't possibly lose my keys or have them stolen wehile out-and-about. Might have a poke at this over weekend.

May also have said yday I am kind of thinking any side trips to places a few hours away by bus, never mind eg Cali, might be best forgotten on this trip. They would involve publicish transport exposure plus if things do flare up I suspect I'm better off in a big city than a small town.

I had half considered going over to Museo Casa de la Memoria this afternoon, perhaps taking a taxi (7.2k quoted by Beat) instead of Metro. But I dithered, I figured I'd be coming back by taxi at rush hour (6pmish) and I also would sort of like to go on Metro to see the trams, but even if I'd gone out off-peak on Metro I'd still have had the issue of coming back at peak time. And after longish call home and dithering I decided not to. Instead went out to bank for cash - there's one right next to hotel but went a block down street to a Davivienda as they seem to be fee-free if you decline their crappy forex conversion. I had depleted the day-to-day cash reserve (which lasted about a month, thanks to using credit cards where possible) so I got another 1020k out. Since it's fee free I half considered getting say 500k but I felt reasonably safe on 70 during day and it was close to hotel and I figured better to get the withdrawal over and done with, both to reduce number of cash machine trips and - not that I think this is a huge issue, but still - if there is a potential crisis brewing it may well be helpful to be sitting on a decent-ish chunk of cash.

(In addition to day-to-day cash reserve I have a fair amount stashed away solely for unexpected expenses/emergencies, but obviously I want to avoid tapping into that unnecessarily.)

I will prob go to lang exchange tonight and if there's any kind of "after party" I'll prob go along to that too. I think my cold is on the way out though still coughing a bit.

I asked in class and neither teacher nor other students seemed to feel voluntary social distancing was relevant at this point (I hope they understood me, but whatever) so while I might partially do this (not entirely clear if for my benefit or benefit of others) by eg avoiding some types of public exposure I'm not going to isolate myself at this point. Obviously will keep an eye on local advice and FCO advice.

Also popped out to Exito and got some fruit and a small chilled can of Coca-Cola con café, which teacher had mentioned (she had also said when at university she used to mix coffee with coke herself), not sure if I had tried it before but it's quite nice if a bit weird. At mum's prompting also bought some *more* acetaminophen (ie paracetamol) from a small chemist en route to Exito (price was about the same), bit pricey at 9k-ish for 20 500mg tablets but can't be helped (I did see a sign outside a random chemist other day which I think was much cheaper, but no idea where that was). I now have 60 tablets (had one box from the other week, bought two more today) which at four a day should cover me for 15 days if necessary without feeling I have to skimp and save them up for if I start to feel worse.

I note the pound is really down against the dollar today, but although it's not quite as good as it was yday or day before it's still doing pretty well against the peso - my withdrawal today was for same number of pesos as the one a month ago but was considerably less in pounds.

1811 Just watched an Atomic Shrimp video about panic buying. I was feeling relatively chilled anyway but very reassuring. (Not, to be fair to myself, that food or other item shortages have really crossed my mind as a significant worry anyway. Mine have been more about personal/family health, my "social responsibilities" and stuff related to my flight home.) Also saw some quote on web about 80%ish of cases having no or mild symptoms, so that's reassuring from a personal pain and suffering POV.

FWIW not that I actually went to look for toilet paper or hand sanitiser, the supermarket here didn't seem to be suffering any kind of panic buying, there was plenty of paracetamol and other OTC medicines, both in smallish shop I bought in and in supermarket (I went over to pharmacy-type aisle to confirm price was similar to small shop, it was). Maybe this is down to being in an earlier stage of the virus spread here, I don't know, but anyway, right now there's no sign of panic buying.

2310 Home. Mildly weird night. Got to LE at 7 which I knew would be early. But hardly anyone really turned up, and the karaoke never happened. Did have some chat with three Colombian women earlyish, then they left, then a long-term student woman from US turned up and said she'd been to two other language exchanges tonight and both were dead. We spoke a bit and a Colombian woman and her Canadian bf joined us and there was some chat (a bit wankily political "my POV is right and don't you dare argue" ish at times but not too bad) and we all split up (can't say I was entirely upset) when cafe shut 2245ish. (Very ish, as I walked straight home and it can't be more than 10 mins walk tops.) No idea why so few people there (and at other LEs) esp given how busy it was last Friday. I hope most foreigners haven't fled the country, HHOS.

I felt a tiny bit sad (in both senses) walking back with all the busy bars etc but frankly wasn't feeling in the mood for a solo beer, nor TBH feeling all that desperate for company. I didn't feel inclined to taxi over to Ondas to see what it's like there, I did suggest it to US woman when she turned up but not with overly much enthusiasm even that relatively early on, and in this mood and at this time of night when it might be intimidatingly busy and going alone would be awkward and it would probably shut in about an hour I really didn't want to go.

It's not like this is some huge crushing disappointment but the night has felt a bit flat somehow, and I am mildly perturbed at low attendance in case this *is* somehow CV related. (The weather was fine, IIRC Mon and Tue and/or Wed it pissed down 7ish for a few hours and I was lucky to avoid getting caught in it, but no serious rain tonight if any at all.) Meh.

Resisted temptation (v mild; really not in mood anyway) to get an empanada on way home. I felt mildly vulnerable on the street but I was fine, I think this is more a reflection on my current mental state of mild dissatisfaction, which I *assume* is caused by a combination of mild disappointment at tonight not being as lively as expected (not that I expected a wild party, just last-week-ish) and maybe a bit of annoyance at the smug politics (though really it wasn't that bad) I had to smile and nod through.

Cold does seem to be on the way out, maybe I will sleep better tonight. I don't want to waste tomorrow and will probably go out to some museum or similar, I may even take Metro, but I don't have huge plans and I think that's fine and it would be good to get a solid sleep in so I will probably set an alarm for 11ish and see what happens, if I choose to wake up/get up earlier that's fine but otherwise no big deal.

I'll probably listen to a bit of music and maybe have a couple of apples and go to bed shortly-ish.

Will observe the three people (US woman, Canadian guy, Colombian gf of Canada guy) at second half of LE all insisted (and of course this is terrible, culture gives men too much power, women are the prize and men should compete for them like in other species, blah blah fuck equality here and let's mandate exactly how society should work right down to the level of what people are allowed to find attractive) many women here have all had loads of plastic surgery to give them big breasts and big arses and sometimes lips etc. and that they all look super attractive. (I may be mixing up different views slightly here, as US woman said some of the women look like they went to surgeon and said "give me the biggest weirdest arse you can, I don't even want it to look natural" , which doesn't sound like she's saying they look attractive, but maybe they are supposedly attractive to men/local men.) I said truthfully I really hadn't noticed and they said I just hadn't been here long enough. I don't know, I even had my attention drawn to the question by Z asking me if the women here were attractive, they just collectively look kind of normal to me, some are attractive to me and some aren't but I'm not regularly struck by what I consider beauty or what I might consider "noticeable" (eg a woman with extremely large breasts, even if I don't particularly like the way she looks) or weirdness, like they've got bizarre proportions due to surgery. Maybe I'm just too old to be paying attention to this sort of thing but it seems unlikely, it's not like I never notice women. Fuck knows. Anyway, especially since Z had asked me about this some time ago, I write this down for what it's worth before I have a chance to mentally reconstruct my opinions after observing women on the street after this conversation.

I probably wouldn't note this otherwise but I will say the three Colombian women I spoke to at LE before this second half and who had all left before the second half were fairly attractive but not like "wow, these women are stunningly beautiful" nor were they sporting gigantic breasts (fake or otherwise). Still, it was a bit unusual for me to notice that attractiveness, but if anything that would just seem to argue for the facts that a) I *am* sensitive to these things but b) despite a), I don't in fact notice this plastic surgery freakishness which is apparently so prevalent or have a general "wow, lots of women here are really attractive (and I don't realise it's because they've had plastic surgery because I'm a dumb idiot thinking with his cock when I see them)" feeling.

Oh, while hanging around at start of LE re-checked FCO website and Argentina page no longer seemed to say anything about the 30 day ban on all flights including outbound starting in a few days. Maybe this has been clarified, I don't know. I do feel a little bit concerned I may get stuck here but in the absence of any concrete advice to the contrary it seems best to avoid taking precipitate action. I did have a quick poke on expedia and they were willing to sell me tickets for any number of flights Bogota-London on 19th April, which is from memory when I fly, so it's not as if flights on that date have been withdrawn as of now anyway.

Sat 0009 Not really in mood for any music (FWIW only had two beers and two tintos(=cheapish black coffee, if not already said that, ie non-alcoholic) tonight) and while not tired I could probably sleep so let's clean teeth, go to bed and hope I feel a bit more upbeat in morning. Not that I'm feeling terrible now but mildly dissatisfied with things all the same.