Lots to tell you!

I don't want to worry you but I am getting serious about buying a place here. I tell everyone here that, although I go back to Spain on 1st March (well it was still Spain when I left), I will return in October, for at least 4 months.... or maybe for ever.
The owner of the apartment where I am living now showed me a small house just a few metres down the road from here and told me that he could look after it when I was away. It was very nice and not expensive, around 22,000 euros. But when I told Nini on WhatsApp she became jealous because she wanted me to live near to her.. her family. So that rather put paid to the house. But, in fact, she was right, albeit a little over-the-top in her response! No surprise there. On reflection the house was rather small and, being a house, it was on two levels and my ideal is one large working space on one level. It had one serious defect in that the stairs ended in a sharp corner leaving no floor between the two rooms upstairs. It was as if the builder had miscalculated where the stairs would end.

As is customary, I made up with my friend Nini after her rant about earning commission from finding a home for me. I forgive instantly and she acknowledges what she is like. I don't even demand an apology.
So, then a few days ago, I went around Nini's neighbourhood, looking for houses and apartments. We found one or two possibilities. Each barrio (area) has a vigilante and he is a good contact for knowing what is for sale. I then had a brief idea about renting a place and Nini suggested sharing a house. But I think I could not live with a volcano! There would have been many complications.
And then we found this house, divided into two separate apartments, still being worked on. The owner's parents live in the top floor and the ground level is for sale at 90 million pesos (around 24k euros). I liked it a lots, very spacious but one snag was the noise from the street, made worse because it is a sharp corner on a hill. Nini was very dismissive about it and I have to confess, despite many years experience of buying homes, I listen to her advice. And it is a short walk from her house (which is rented).

Then she came back a couple of days later having spoken to her father and enthused about the place saying what a good investment it would be. And that the noise can be resolved with double-glazing. So we went back. I really like the place and I said that I would speak to my lawyer, which is tomorrow Tuesday. 
Then yesterday, we looked at more houses. I saw a new development on the internet and went to see the show house today. But a house at the end of a block is about 32k euros, way above my original budget. And now Nini seems totally to have lost interest in finding a house anyway.
But while I was walking around the estate, I saw an identical house at the end of terrace for rent. It was perfect, right by trees and greenery. The rent is 500 mil pesos a month which is about €140. Wow, I can rent my apartment in Spain for €600 a month and rent this house for €140! How can that be bad? And I don't touch my precious capital.
This year, I have been bitten by insects quite a lot in the past 3-4 days. It is a shock because last year I don't remember being bitten once, even on a trek in deep forest trails. The only difference I can imagine is either the weather has made breeding easier - wet weather followed by heat. Or it is to do with where I am living, Cuba as opposed to the main city of Pereira. But it has only happened in the past week. So now I will have to cover up more and use my repellent every day because it is during the day, not during the night - my windows are closed and a mozzie close to me when I am sleeping wakes me immediately with its high pitched buzz. Obviously, this being a tropical country, insects tend to carry rather nasty diseases. Pereira is free of malaria I am sure. There is no practical protection against malaria anyway apart from avoiding getting bitten. And I am afraid I have failed there! I spoke to Nini about it and she only uses repellent when she visits the finca where her sister works. She says there are lots of mosquitoes there.
One minor event which you may find interesting. On Sunday, I took Nini and Alexander around Olimpia, their favourite supermarket to buy food because they had none. I was going to buy a food mixer for his cake-making but it was quite expensive so we decided to convert it into food and rent. And then I saw a really cheap mixer which fits inside the budget, so I ordered that. I bought one or two items for myself, bacon, shampoo and floor polish. We all went back to their home to unpack the shopping, they went to a family event and I went back to the centre of Cuba to have some lunch. Then I went into Éxito supermarket, forgetting that I had the three items of shopping from Olimpia. Normally, of course, I would declare them with security on entry and get stickers attached but I completely forgot. When I came to leave, I remembered the items and decided to declare them rather than have them discovered. The security guy called the security manager and we went to the small room at the back of the store where they take shoplifters! We unpacked my bag. But it was all very amicable, I don't think for a minute they imagined I was intending to steal the items. Why would I declare them? So we chatted a lot, his brother worked in Barcelona. One interesting bit of sleuthing: he realised that the pack of bacon was warm, so obviously it had come from elsewhere. Unfortunately I had given the Olimpia receipt to Nini so that would have saved a lot of trouble. Then we both went back to the entrance where we bade farewell.
I was half way up the steps to the bus station when a woman came up to me to ask in halting English if I had been in any kind of trouble. We switched to Spanish. I explained what had happened so she seemed satisfied. "Always show your shopping when you enter a store," she said. I know!! I know! I forgot. She ended with dire warnings about taking care, nasty people around.... even women! I am not sure what she had in mind. Maybe a hand on knee which is classified as sexual harassment these days. Did she mean stealing my bacon? I showed her where my wallet and phone were, tightly fixed around my waist under my shirt. She ought to have been warning me about malicious insects, now that is something I do have to take care about. But I spent the rest of the day in the joyous atmosphere of a Sunday afternoon in Cuba, I chatted to a few people, one of whom asked where I was from as I passed by. And no one tried to steal my bacon which was so warm by now that I am a little cautious about eating it now although it is in a vacuum pack.