mon 19th - sat 3rd mar 2007 mon 5 mar 2007

i'm a tiling man, i spend several days learning to tile while i did it. the first room actually came out better than the second. they finally brought a professional in who dis in two hours what i accomplished in 2 days. but i finally got to see how it's supposed to be done, so i went ahead and started some more today only to have the base foreman, who up until this point had been saying "very good my son" come up and quickly disappear and then reappear with the guy who had done the work the other day. he inspected things and then showed me some flaws. they left and i thought he'd said i should continue, but soon someone who spoke english was brought in to tell me that they were going to let the other guy finish the job. shortly after they left another person showed up with someone who spoke english to tell me the same thing. i realized that they would rather pay someone to do the job now. at this point i was kind of getting the hang of it. oh well. where did the month go? 28 days is part of the problem 2 days short from the start.



totally accidentally witnessed the eclipse. i was walking out just as the sun was setting and looked up at the moon and it didn't look right, then i realized it had been full a few nights before, so i got my camera out and snapped a few shots. it's a pretty amazing sky down here, very clear and not alot of light to distract, i guess the hole in the atmosphere helps also.

so now i'm off to santiago, it's 19:47 and i'm on a bus, my flight is 12 hours from now, the trip is 2 more hours, so i'm not sure where i'll be hanging out until 05:00 when i have to be at the airport. i got a super deal on this round trip flight to lima, $140 the one way flight was $511, i'm trying to figure out how all the penalty provisions will apply when i don't show up for the return flight. i've got company, the base foreman has decided to accompany me. he was going to drive me, but the base car ended up having mechanical problems so he insisted on coming with me, i guess he thinks the cab drivers will take advantage of me in santiago, i didn't want to put him out but he insisted. we make an odd pair as he speaks about the same amount of english as i do spanish. he's asleep now which averts some of the awkwardness.

i got the word that the car was out of the picture about 2 and a half hours ago. i had just comeback from town with some food for the trip (expecting to leave at 0200) suddenly i had to get my act together, shower and pull out all the things i am leaving. i'm coming home light but may not have room for my own things. i've been asked to return with two spray paint systems and a router, a repeater, some headsets, and cables. i was hoping to bring a surf board down and warm cloths, sheets etc. we'll see how it all goes. there is a group coming down a week behind me, so i hope to possibly pawn some of this off on them.