Thursday, December 7, 2017

Lots of changes being made here

I put out two very large pieces of bread on the "tree" and guess who showed up and grabbed the bread and ran. The Chakalakas were hungry. 
And so were we - we headed across the street to Torres for breakfast. Rough life.
And the birds there were hungry too. Helping themselves to leftovers before they could be removed. 
Don't you wish you were here too? Weather is now perfect about 83 during the day with a sea breeze and down to 60 something at night. Blue sky this morning. 
Lots of new buildings going up. This one is just before the marina. It says Apartments with yacht included. Price US$ 142,000. Wonder how big the yacht is? One for every one? Wow.
The other side of the marina another big building of condos going up. Hopefully there will be a lot of buyers. 
Heading into the Golden Zone there is more road construction. Everyone is in the south bound lanes. The RV park you can see Mar Rosa closed this year for good. One by one they are closing. 
Leaving the Golden Zone heading on to the 13 mile Malecon. This part is finished. new sidewalks, sea walls, trees and sun shades and a bicycle path. Only problem is, now there is no parking. 
Ever since we've been coming here there was a vacant lot here. All weeds, trash and a crumbling building. Surprised this year to see this sign and contractors at work.  Looks like it is going to be really pretty. 
Some kind of shelter is going up. And some cement retaining walls going up. More done every time we go by it. 
Continuing on - this was a surprise. The area where the divers dive has always had many, many vendors. All kinds of food available and any souvenir you might want. Now NOTHING. Can't even drive down that side of the street. I wonder where all the vendors are now? We loved to come over here day and night and walk around. 
Heading out towards the harbor. All new light fixtures. 
Heading back towards the Centro Historico. Coming down the hill into Olas Altas. Beautiful city. The diver's platform is the smaller white rock with the very white steps leading to the top. 
Radio tower hill, full of colorful homes and businesses. 
The construction is complete here in the Olas Altas area. Street has been repaved and sidewalks have been widened and repaved with a nice looking tile. Also new lighting. But again all the parking that was there is now gone. 
New trees too. Sure looks nice and evenings the road is closed to vehicular traffic. Lots of people walking around nights. 
AARRG! More construction and another street half closed. I think they are rebuilding a restaurant - any way there used to be one there. 
 Coming back to the area where the vendors were and the where the divers platform is. The southbound lanes are blocked off by barricades and police cars. There are a couple of vendors walking around and a couple more off the sidewalk under umbrellas. So  Billdecided to stop to see what was going on. 
 Waiting to talk to the policeman. As he was waiting a pulmonia full of tourists pulled up and stopped. And a diver appeared.
 He talked to them, they came to a deal and the diver headed out.
The curb is where the benches are the metal fence is in the street. Between the two is where the vendor carts used to be. Now nothing is going on there. As near as Bill could understand there is a problem between the vendors and the government. The government wants to limit the vendors and make the area more "pleasing to the eye". They would eliminate about half the vendors to do this. So the vendors wouldn't agree to that so the barricades went up. Now a no one wins situation -IF that is really what is going on. 
 Missed the diver diving but there he is climbing back up the rocks. With the big waves it took him two or three tries to grab his foothold to climb out of the water. 
Heading back towards the Malecon - yet another street torn up. And more parking spaces are gone. 
Have more pictures from this day but will save them for the next blog. Had a lovely sunset...

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