San Alberto → Sabana de Torres → Barrancabermeja → Puerto Araujo → Puerto Berrío

[amw]

I've done it! I've made it to the "puerto belt"! That's the part of the Magdalena Medio between Medellín and Bogotá where all the towns are called Puerto Something. I noticed it when i was speaking to a Colombian tourist up in Cabo de la Vela who told me he came from a town called Puerto Boyacá, which is another port a little bit further south of

Comments

[newwaytowrite]

How hot will it be if you choose the gravel /river crossing route?

We would have done our taxes already except one of my interest on investment tax receipt never arrived. Thankfully that was resolved by my investment dude as it was in that grouping. He said a number of his clients had trouble getting their tax receipts from same company as I. I found it strange as I received one tax receipt from the same company but not the other.
I might not have to pay as much this year as one investment didn’t meet the minimum threshold to require I report the interest. And I moved some stuff to TFSA so that should help.

[amw]

Looks like it'll be about 32 degrees and pretty humid. The past few days it's been hovering in the high 20s, low 30s and very sticky. Overnight there are epic thunderstorms, but nothing in the day yet. It's not dangerously hot, but it'd still suck if i get halfway along the road and get a flat or something else happens that leaves me having to walk.

I think my tax problem is the same as yours. One of my friends who invests said this happened to her last year, where one fund didn't get back to them so Scotia couldn't issue the T5. It's really annoying, because there isn't any transparency around who is causing the delay or why. The rest of my taxes should be pretty easy, since it's just contract earnings from January through August, so i just need to add up all the deposits to my bank account and that's that.

[dadi]

*hugs*
As far as I know, in Europe there aren't really many restrictions in place any more. As of the 1st of April, all mask and vaccination mandates have been dropped in Germany and I think Italy and Spain are doing it soon too.

[amw]

I have to admit, i was thinking more of Asia in my head. I would love to visit Europe again, but i suspect if i did visit i would feel like i ought to be working, and in that case perhaps it would be easier to just work in Canada, since (thanks to Brexit) i can work there without needing to go through immigration.

[dadi]

Ok, just looked it up...you need 3 vaccinations still. Nothing else.

[carriea31]

It's so frustrating not to have the forms you need to file. That kind of thing makes me really irritated.

[coercedbynutmeg]

US doesn't have no-frills lodging, or "affordable housing." Like, where are the rooming houses or boarding houses? A century ago in literature, you'd read about people getting a room for a night/week/month from some old widow with a half-dozen to spare. Nowadays you need a lease, a credit card, and/or a tent.

I hope you didn't choose the gravel road, because that sounds excruciating for all parts of your body that can jiggle or that can transmit vibrations.

[amw]

I know right? I don't understand where those places went. A part of me wants to blame regulations, but then you look at Airbnb which totally bypassed regulations, and most of those are just as expensive as regular hotels and much more expensive than renting the same apartment, so it's a joke to say they disrupted anything. The anti-capitalist theory would be it's simply the greed of property owners - they know they can ask for more, so they just ask for more. Which ultimately comes down to a supply and demand problem, and a question around why we don't build more supply in popular areas (spoiler: NIMBYs control zoning). But that still doesn't explain why even in very remote parts of North America where there are dozens of abandoned properties you still can't get a motel room for under $50 a night. I don't really know what the real cause is, but it does frustrate me a lot, as someone who really doesn't have very high requirements for where i live - i just want somewhere private, sheltered from the elements and clean. It doesn't seem

[coercedbynutmeg]

I don't use AirBNB on principle, because as someone who moves fairly frequently and often has to live in touristy spots, it's complete bullshit when a chunk of long-term rental properties have been transformed into high-dollar short-term lodging. If you can rent out your spare house for $2K/mo for a year, or $1K per week, which would you pick? You come out ahead even if it's empty half the time. The last place we lived, the county had "strict limits" on the number of days you could have short-term tenants, but I think they defined "short-term" as anything under 30 days, so people got around it by leasing by the month in the winter and saved the "short-term" days for tourist season.

I suppose the reason hotels are expensive because of overhead, both for the workers and for the building/maintenance/materials costs. Ma Bailey's boarding house would be a lot more affordable, but she'd probably need a hotelier's license and a permit and insurance, and frankly it's not worth the shit. AirBNB works because of the economies of scale,