16 July 2010

Things seem to be progressing more slowly again this week. Koki did not make the trip this week because the family's pet monkey died on Monday. Koki's wife and daughter were both very attached to the monkey, so it was a hard week for them. We also did not have a delivery other than water this week. This last delivery is supposed to have everything necessary to complete construction.

José and Chino have been working in the pool (literally) all week. About three quarters of the bottom has been tiled. I´m anxious to see how it looks when the paper backing is peeled off. I think they haven´t done this yet as the tiles are a bit delicate until the grout is put in. Those sections without paper have been grouted.

Chimu and his crew of carpenters returned mid-week to complete the roofs on the bungalows and to lay the wood deck around the pool. The roof structure was going up on the third bungalow today; but none of the bungalows had the second roof over the vent. Usually the carpenters leave on Saturday, but I hope they stay until their job is done. Otherwise, it will be the end of next week at the earliest to get their part done. Once they are done with the roofs, another crew will come in and put on the felt and three-tab composite.


The walkways between buildings are laid out and the crew is pouring cement. The one walkway which hasn´t been started is one from the parking level up to the house. There is also a lot of debris in and around the construction site which will have to be dealt with. We can´t really start landscapìng until it´s cleaned up and loads of good soil can be brought in.

We are also waiting on the window crew to return. Windows are still lacking in the bungalows. Screens for under the eaves are also not done.

Friends of ours from Lima have been planning to visit us during the last week of July for their winter vacation. I can hardly believe one of the bungalows will be ready at this point....seems like we´ve been running up against deadlines along the way and so far, haven´t met any of them completely.

Doug is returned from the states today, will arrive in Lima about midnight, and take a flight up north tomorrow. I will be so glad to see him! He called me this afternoon to tell me the airlines weren´t going to allow him to leave the states unless he had a return ticket. This is the first time we´ve heard this restriction; and have traveled back and forth before without a ticket returning us to the states. Since we are living in Peru, this doesn't make sense. But, we have no documentation to prove we are living in Peru. We are issued a 90 day visa when we enter the country. When those 90 days are up, we have to leave and re-enter the country. We can do this simply by going over the border into Ecuador and returning; there is no time limit for being out of the country. We can get a resident visa after being here for two years. We are having our good friend Luis investigate our options so hopefully we don't run into this again. As it turned out, the airlines eventually issued Doug boarding passes and nothing more was said about a return ticket.