I visited the Museo de Oro and the Numismatic Museum, both of which were in the same complex. The Gold Museum (Museo de Oro) didn't permit pictures but had a very good display explaining exactly how gold was mined and made into exquisite works in the pre-Columbian era.
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| Coins meant to circulate only among people with leprosy and tuberculosis, in order to avoid contamination of others. The cutout piece indicates its purpose. |
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| "Company store" type coins. Laborers were paid with currency created by the employer, for use only at the employer's facilities. |
As I walked back to the hotel I noticed T-shirts and caps hanging all over the fences of the Stadium; they were Justin Bieber paraphernalia for sale. He would be performing that night. Lukcy me- my plans called for getting out of town to the hotel near the airport since I had an early flight the next morning. I stopped at Starbucks because I didn't want the day to end, and it was filled with young women in Justin Bieber gear.
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| No, I did NOT buy one to take home. |
I went back to my hotel and asked for a cab to the Hampton
Inn near the airport. A staff member
called for one and told me when he’d arrived- gave the plate number and told me
my driver was named Jimmy. I got
outside and the first cab in line had a different plate number but the driver
greeted me with “Regina?” Well, OK. I handed him my bags and told him I was going
to the Hampton Inn near the airport.
The first sign that something was off was when he stopped to
answer a call from someone named Alejandro.
I could glean enough of the conversation to learn that Alejandro was
chastising him for picking me up (meaning that my driver was NOT Jimmy) and my
driver’s response was something like, “Hey, I got there first”. He fielded another call from Alejandro and a
couple more from Jimmy, pretty much repeating the same thing. Finally we stopped- at the airport. I asked him in Spanish, “Where is the Hampton
Inn?” He gestured vaguely inside the
terminal and I assumed (I am too trusting) that the hotel was in the
airport. A few airports have hotels on
the premises. This was not one of
them. I blundered my way downstairs with
all my bags and found the Arrivals area.
No indication of where the shuttles arrived so I tried to call the
hotel. My credit card didn’t work. (My iPhone plan does not offer international
options.) Finally, an enterprising old
guy with a primitive cell phone who was running around helping people like me
got the hotel number, called it, and handed me the phone. The shuttle would arrive soon. I gratefully gave the guy the equivalent of a
few dollars. The shuttle did arrive. I was thoroughly frazzled by the time I got
into my room. I guess something has to
go wrong on every trip and as Bad Taxi Driver stories go, this was mild. I realized that he’d dropped me off at the
airport because it would be far easier to pick up another fare there (probably
the reason he “stole” my trip from Jimmy) and resolved to write to the Hilton
manager with a copy of my receipt in the hopes that they’d report him to the
cab company.(Which they did, promptly, after I contacted them.)
The evening ended well- they had only a Denny's near the hotel but a shuttle to an area with a good variety of restaurants, where I had a nice meal of Italian food.
