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Hola a todos nuestros amigos y familiares,
It is that time of year again - the years roll by with ever increasing speed. Our last blog was in May so high time for another!
Nothing much has changed in the last 6 months. We remain feeling very lucky to be living in such a land of plenty - and at such a reasonable cost of living. There doesn't seem to be any sign of a recession here. There are many individual street front shops and many people out and about walking the streets. When going to the old town (only about a 20 minute walk from our house), we usually walk for the exercise, because driving in such narrow streets with very limited parking is problematic. Different if we are going to Llanogrande where there are two large supermarkets, or Rio Negro (30 kms away) where there is a large shopping mall with the local equivalent of Mitre 10 or Bunnings - the name is Homecentre. In all those cases there is underground parking. In Llanogrande there is also an icecream shop selling yoghurt icecream. Absolutely delicious and you can have two toppings from a choice of at least 20, We are becoming more and more like locals (Paisas) every day!
Our car, a 1993 W124 E320, had continued to be a little concern, so we went to the local MB agent, Alemautos in Llanogrande, who we knew had a policy of not servicing or repairing any Mercedes older than 10 years. This is a policy which we find abhorrent and hypocritical as MB always tout the long-term reliability of their cars, but when it comes to the crunch, they don't want to know. Probably mainly because these days no-one knows how to diagnose ANY car unless you can plug it in to a computer.
Friends here had recommended us to a workshop in Llanogrande and we had a few things done there and for once they were always helpful and diligent. This particular place specialised in older classic cars and among others they had a 1931 Chevrolet Tourer and a 1957 Ford Thunderbird as well as a very ancient Overland - the forerunner of Willys. There was even a Ford Prefect, which those of us of a certain age probably remember in NZ!!
However, they didn't have the knowledge to correctly diagnose a problem we had with incorrect idling and controlling the correct fuel/air mixture. The offending part was the throttle body. Hence the visit to Alemautos was helpful as they put us in touch with a guy who lived in a nearby town, La Ceja. He has a 1970's W123 200 (4 cylinders) and he in turn recommended us to Jose Luis in Itagui. This is a light industrial urban area just south of Envigado (Medellin) where we used to live. So, as we were reluctant to drive down there (although we had been using the car around here), we organised a tow truck (grua) and delivered the car to Jose Luis. He is the guru for all those strange types who enjoy owning and driving these wonderful old vehicles. He himself has a 1987 W126 500SEL (V8) which gave Jim some confidence as the last MB in NZ had been a 1987 W126 420SEC. Jose Luis organised for the throttle body to be sent away to a specialist shop in Medellin to have the wiring and mechanicals rebuilt. He also diagnosed that the entire engine wiring system needed replacing as MB in those years (90's) installed biodegradable wiring in the mistaken belief that they were assisting the environment! We could have obtained a complete wiring loom from Germany, but Jose Luis assured us that he could rebuild the electrics on-site - and cheaper! This he did for 2.2 million pesos which is the equivalent of NZD 860 - half the German price. The car was also overdue for a service so that was all done and now the old girl is as good as new. The secret here is to find someone with the knowledge of these cars - it has taken us almost 2 years, but now we feel we are on top of things. We also have a spare throttle body and a spare Engine Control Module which we plan to have repaired/rebuilt also in Medellin. Then we will have workable spares.
Over the last 2 years the car has certainly cost us to get all the issues sorted, but it is still a "cheap" car! Original cost two and a half years ago 26,000,000 Pesos (USD5,900) - NZD10,400. Not sure what we've spent since, but certainly not that much and these cars are appreciating in value as more and more people realise their build quality and value compared with anything more modern.
The other issue re the car and driving was to renew Jim's driver's licence. The original had been issued in Medellin in November 2019. As it was expiring this year, 5 years on, it needed renewing. There was a place in Llanogrande where this process could be initiated. There they conducted various physical tests - hearing, sight, heart, blood pressure and a psychological test! The old boy passed all with flying colours, but then there was a problem. Our previous car, which had been sold in 2021, had a fine attached to it for breaching Pico y Placa in 2022. This should have been the liability of the new owner, but the RUNT (Registro Unico Nacional de Transito) had been tardy in registering the change of ownership. This meant that the RUNT wouldn't issue the new licence until the outstanding fine had been paid - plus interest!
One of the problems with Colombia is getting ANYONE to accept responsibility for any error or oversight, and so it was in this case. There was no option but for us to pay the 560,000 pesos (NZD 220), but it had to be paid in Medellin! However, we found a guy who could do this for us which meant at least that we didn't have to go there for this nonsensical reason. Then the RUNT computer system went down for a couple of days which meant they couldn't issue the actual licence anyway!!! However, that was fixed and now Jim is the holder of a new licence which expires in October 2028 when he will have been 80 years old for about 9 months! At that stage the requirement is for renewal every 12 months until one either expires altogether, or decides to discontinue driving, or fails the test.
As a footnote, Jim's NZ licence has been expired now for 3 years, so that won't be renewed.
We had some sad news a couple of months ago. Des Kearns, an Australian who with his Thai wife ran a boat yard at Krabi Boat Lagoon in Thailand, had passed away according to a Serbian friend of Jean's (Maja) who we had met when we were in Krabi at the marina. Des as a young man of 19 in 1964, had sailed from NZ to Rarotonga on A.B. Donald's old original schooner, "Tiare Taporo". That was just after Jim's family had sold her after 50 years of ownership. So, when Jim had been researching places to get some maintenance done, he emailed Des on this email address and Des's comment when we subsequently met him was that the email address just "jumped off the page at him"!! That was the start of a great relationship, in spite of some engineering issues that we had at one stage. While we were in Chennai, India getting 2 replacement hips for Jean in 2014, Des's yard at our instigation raised the floor of our teak cockpit and used some surplus teak that had come from "Cariad", a very large ketch (over 100 feet) that had been built in Southampton, U.K. in 1896 that Des and the yard had been instrumental in restoring a few years earlier. We felt very honoured to have had some of that ancient and historic teak.
After his "Tiare Taporo" experience, Des had gone on to sail on some very famous yachts, including "Ondine II" which won the Sydney - Hobart Yacht Race in 1968 - with Des on board! He was also a Cape Horner, having sailed around Cape Horn a few years earlier and also sailed on another famous old schooner, "Bluenose II" from the Caribbean to Halifax, Nova Scotia. He later obtained his foreign-going Master Mariner ticket and at one stage commanded the then largest ship in the world, an Arctic oil-drilling ship. His life was a fascinating story of the sea. Later in life he had settled on Langkawi, Malaysia conducting a marine insurance business. He had moved to Thailand by the time we met him and was married to Ked who ran the office of the business. We won't forget Des.
Our health remains in reasonably good shape. Jean has had issues with tendons and connective tissues but has now found a natural health massage therapist who practises at La Fe - only about a 10 minute drive from here. She comes up here from Calli once a month and Jean (who is hard to please!) is pleased with her. They manage the language issue with extensive use of Google Translate on her phone!
We are still members of Hacienda Fizebad (just past La Fe) and Jim swims there in their heated pool. He's been having roughly 6 monthly blood tests and for the past year now the HbA1c results have been very encouraging as they have been consistently in the "posible presencia de Diabetes" range. So, it's been possible to reduce the medication to a very low level with the goal of eliminating it altogether. Another area of concern in the last 12 months has been a very underactive Thyroid (TSH). We have been treating that with daily Iodine (Yodo) drops and the results have improved markedly, although still not completely within the "Valores de Referencia". Hopefully in the next 6 months........ We order the Yodo from Medellin, pay for it on-line and then it gets delivered here within a week! Nothing happens quickly here in Colombia!
Other than that, when the car has been in the workshop, walking is the order of the day and we've even been known to walk about a mile to the La Dulce Compagna cafe on a Sunday morning for breakfast with Andy, our fellow NZ'er orchid breeding friend. There is a small supermarket, a fruit and veg shop and various health shops all within easy walking distance. Our Venezuelan friend, Daniela, who has a coffee kiosk close to us here, has also recently opened a shop selling health foods just up towards the old town. She has made a great job of setting the shop up and we buy some of our requirements from her, including goat's milk yoghurt and organic chicken breasts or thighs. And organic eggs. Daniela had originally introduced us to Andy back in 2021 when she recognised an accent similarity!! Daniela speaks excellent English and obtained a business degree from a university in Caracas, before things became untenable in Venezuela. All her immediate family are here, including her early 90's grandmother! We have met Granny, a wonderful redoutable old lady.
Andy is flat out most of the time with his orchid breeding business, and supplying his many customers around the world. He hosted us at 2 orchid shows this year as part of the annual Medellin Flower Show. A fascinating day, especially as the explanations were from a world expert!
Jean went to Miami in October for Carter's 10th. birthday - a landmark event. She had great fun with the nietos, but on the last day slipped while playing futball with the young lads and hurt her already bad knee, so much that they had to order a wheelchair for the flight the next day. But in typical fashion, she was able to walk off the plane with the man pushing the wheelchair behind her!!
As another footnote, 11 years ago we were sailing on "Tiare Taporo III" one night in the Java Sea heading towards northern Indonesia and Singapore when we received a Sailmail from Perry advising of Carter's entry into this world in NZ.. Jean was then a Granny!! A notable event.
As said, we really enjoy living here with everything at hand. Even if we eventually cannot drive, we can walk short distances and catch the El Retiro-Rio Negro bus anywhere we want to go. The buses stop on demand. When the old German chariot has been in the workshop we have become very adept at utilising the local buses.
There is a carniseria at the local Cantaleta shopping centre and we often buy oxtails - 3 or 4 at a time. They average around 30,000 pesos each (NZD 12). We also get whole filet steaks which we used to call Cube Rolls in NZ. Here they are known as Solomito - about 100,000 pesos each (NZD 40) and we chop them up at home - probably 5 or 6 meals out of one.
Our country club, Hacienda Fizebad, is still going but we believe they had struck some financial problems. There was remedial work being done to the sauna, hot tub and massage area but that stalled for lack of money to finish, but now it appears that they have sold an area of land at the back near where the horse stables are. That would have given the club a financial boost - we just hope that any development is not high rise as that would detrimentally affect the whole ambience.
On that note, everywhere you look on the approach roads to El Retiro, there are residential apartment developments and including up the hill behind Retiro where there is a very large development called Argentina - almost a town in its own right. The worry is that with all these developments, the local infrastructure will not cope. Traffic and roads (already getting quite congested at times), water supply (Medellin draws much of its water from up here) and when local demand grows, that could impact the city. We have reticulated natural gas in the town, but Colombia is already importing a quantity of gas, so not sure what the long-term future holds. An offshore gas field just 12 miles off the Caribbean coast has been recently discovered, but that will take 3-4 years to bring on-line. And electricity - it's OK for now with a very large hydro scheme now fully operating not too far away, but worryingly we see more electric cars on the road, and apart from getting nervous if they park next to us with the attendant fire risk, if there are too many the grid will simply not cope. This is true of many countries of course.
We have a non-flued gas heater which we turn on when some nights get a bit chilly (it's technically "winter" here now) and it does a great job of heating the house. Only problem is that these houses were built with NO insulation in the roof and so the heat is quickly lost, but with any luck we are tucked up in bed by then! But really, here at 7,000 feet, there is very little seasonality. We are only 6 degrees north of the Equator.
Just to give you an idea of energy costs - we received our latest monthly energy bill the other day. The total has gone up a bit and was COP 646,948 (NZD 259). That's for a month and covers water, waste water, gas and electricity.
The weather has been variable - some prolonged dry periods along with some very wet days just to balance things out. We've even had a couple of hail storms which haven't done our Anthurium lilies much good but they are coming along well again. They are native to Ecuador and SW Colombia. Andy gave us some orchids some months ago now and one so far has flowered - twice. So, maybe sometime in the next 100 years, we may become accomplished orchid growers!!
Again on the subject of family, Jim's eldest daughter Amanda, who is now 53, and who is a very busy midwife in Auckland, announced that she and her long-time boyfriend, Dave, are planning a S American trip in early February next year. They will only be with us for 8 days and we haven't seen each other for 5 years, but of necessity their total time is limited and they do want to see a few other places in S America while they are here. They fly direct from Auckland into Santiago, Chile with LATAM, and will also have a quick trip to Valparaiso (the port for Santiago), then Bogota for a couple of days, then here when we will also go to Medellin, and then they have a flying visit to the Colombian Caribbean coast. Then on the way back they go to Lima in Peru and to a resort on the Amazon somewhere before heading home via Santiago. We are very much looking forward to the visit - the first of any family member since we moved permanently to Colombia 7 years ago.
Now we must comment on the geopolitics of this world, which as things are going, have a very good chance of snuffing out all life on this planet. We must just hope that there are some sane heads in Washington who will stymie any further efforts on the part of the criminal Democrats to create any more booby traps for the incoming Trump Administration.
The fact that the current Democrat Administration is prepared to risk all of our lives with nuclear war just for vindictive revenge for Trump winning the election by a landslide, is just appalling. What can you say - there are no words to sufficiently convey the absolute horror of this situation.
Hardly anyone seems to realise it, but we are all VERY FORTUNATE that President Putin has conducted such a restrained military "special operation" in Ukraine, while the US has authorised Ukraine to lob US Atacam and British Storm Shadow missiles 200 miles into Russia every so often. Russia has now developed the Oreznik missile which is hypersonic and can travel at up to Mach 9 (7,000 mph) which means it cannot be detected, much less intercepted.
Washington still seems to think that Russia is inferior in military strength; 2 years of Russian dominance in Ukraine (and now absolute victory) should persuade otherwise, but unfortunately there is a severe lack of intellect in the White House. They will learn. As long as we don't have to learn the hard way with them?
And apart from Ukraine, the whole of the Middle East is on fire thanks to the crooked inept Biden administration. There was a plan a few years ago hatched by Israel with US (CIA) support, to start wars of destabilisation in 7 Middle East countries - Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen and Iran. Now, 6 of these countries are in turmoil thanks to the at least partial success of this plan. Iran remains the last country to be attacked and P.M. Netanyahu of Israel is now just itching to attack Iran, as he is flush with success with CIA instigated recent events totally destabilising Syria. In the process Israel will drag the US into the war with Iran, as Israel cannot prolong an Iranian war on its own, and so would request a rescue by the US. Such a war would be damaging enough, but would also mean that Russia and probably China would also become involved. Then all bets are off. And there is also the spectre of Turkish forces on the northern Syrian border poised to attack the Kurds, with whom they have been enemies for centuries. The US had guaranteed the Kurds' safety, but will now abandon them to their fate from Turkey. Interestingly, Turkey and Israel appear to be allies for now in suppressing Syria from the north and south, but in fact they are implacable enemies and Turkey would like nothing more than to march into Jerusalem to "liberate" Israel for the Moslems. And a further perhaps unintended consequence of US (CIA) meddling - the "rebels" that were aided by the US in taking Damascus are in fact a product of the same terrorists that caused the 9/11 attacks in New York. The hypocrisy of the US is mind boggling.
There is a lot more that needs to be learnt about this troubled part of the world; suffice it to say that it is a cauldron rapidly coming to the boil with who knows what consequences.
Let's just hope that these situations can remain at least somewhat stable until President Trump takes office on January 20th. because he has said his first priority is to stop these needless wars. The problem is that there are people in Washington right now who are for ideological reasons opposed to making peace and another reason is that they and most of the Houses of Congress are under the sway of substantial political donations from the Military/Industrial Complex whose profit driven aim is simply to continue to keep any war going that they can.
Trump's task will be extraordinarily difficult because in ending these wars he is going against the Deep State and the strong financial donation link between Congress and the military - the Pentagon and also the State Dept. At least he has tentatively appointed some excellent people who will support him in these efforts - unlike in his first term when through lack of political experience, he appointed many of the wrong people.
We also feel concerned at Trump's readiness to threaten financial sanctions and tariffs - even now when the ability of the USD to be weaponised is waning under the threat from the BRICS nations who have already de-dollarised their international transactions. These USD threats do not carry the same weight that they once did and the Trump Administration should act with caution, otherwise the US dollar is likely to lose its World Reserve Currency status, as a result of more countries joining BRICS as they seek to avoid on-going USD hegemony. If that happens, the whole US economy would be in dire straits, given the current level of federal debt.
The bottom line is that the US is no longer the dominant world economy and the BRICS countries are already making substantial inroads into tradicional markets.
Having said all that, a Trump Presidency is a life saver for the world compared to the unthinkable Harris alternative.
On top of all that, the EU which has been struggling under the impossible odds of unfettered immigration of mainly young Moslem men, and extreme left-wing governments, is close to imploding. And with it will go the Euro. France's government has collapsed and Germany has called an emergency election for February where almost certainly the Socialists of Chancellor Schultz will be gone. The biggest problem will be deporting the illegals - unlike the US where they will just send them packing back across the Rio Grande. And Russia has announced that ALL gas supplies into Europe via Ukraine will be cut off - in the middle of winter.
NZ remains a concern as they are struggling under an enormous debt load as the legacy of the completely destructive Ardern government. There have been 2 consecutive quarters now of falling GDP - the technical definition of an economic recession.
NZ may well need to join BRICS because we cannot imagine that China would continue to pay for Kiwifruit and milk powder, except in Yuan or a new BRICS currency. Same goes for Australia with minerals.
The NZ coalition government should also get rid of any on-going racially divisive legalities so that ALL NZer's are governed equally as one people. There will be NO substantive economic progress until all the racial bickering and receipt of taxpayer funds is fully dealt with and abolished.
And again let's hope that the recently begun 2nd inquiry into Covid and how it was mismanaged will come up with some conclusions and that individuals who acted entirely inappropriately can be held accountable. The main thing is to get the mRNA "vaccines" banned because there is on-going harm still coming to light and these mRNA "vaccines" have never been tested anywhere near properly. We get regular up-dates on the situation from NZ Doctors Speaking Out About Science - NZDSOS. It is frustratingly slow but things are happening - unlike the first "inquiry" which was intended solely as a whitewash. We owe the much better constituted second inquiry to NZ First who had insisted on this in the original coalition agreement.
Hopefully there won't be a similar attempt to whitewash the inquiry in the same way that National appears to be willing to ignore ACT's Treaty Principles Bill in the vain hope that it will all go away.
The UK and all of western Europe is in total financial and political chaos - from financially supporting the corrupt black hole the Ukraine has been from the outset and now their people and industry are going to suffer badly because of Russia pulling the plug on gas exports. This situation is exacerbated by the ridiculous green policies adopted in recent times. The only hope for the future is for the right wing political parties to gain sufficient ground that they succeed in upcoming elections which are not far away in most cases.
As regards future energy needs are concerned, particularly if the lunatic pursuit of electric cars continues, the required energy can only be produced by the use of clean burning fossil fuels and/or nuclear power from modern modular nuclear power stations. This comment applies to NZ also.
How's that for a controversial finish to a Christmas blog?!
We hope that everyone has a very happy festive season and that the New Year is everything that you would wish for.
With lotsaluv and all best wishes from us in El Retiro, Colombia...........
Jim and Jean
P.S. This Jean standing in front of a publicity poster of Retiro.
