seeth07
Well-known member
Day 7 Una cacería no esperada (A hunt not expected)
This final morning on the hunting portion of the trip, we got to sleep in until 730am which felt great. We sat around the breakfast table for almost 3 hours sipping on coffee and eating bread and jam. The plan Santi told us was to eat lunch and then he would be driving us to our hotel in the city himself.
While sitting at the table, Martine had walked away and then he comes back with a rifle and asks us something in Spanish. Santi kind of chuckles and then translates for us "Martine wants to know if you guys want to help him by shooting some parakeets?". Both Erica and I had a somewhat puzzled look on our faces. We weren't exactly sure if he was joking or not. He then explains (obviously through Santi translating) that they are an extreme nuisance and they cause a lot of damage to the home and its a pain to clean all of their poop off the roof. We go outside and I do immediately notice the mass of poop on the roof. Martine shows us how to operate his rifle which is a cool Diana .22 with a suppressor on it. I can't find the exact rifle online by googling it so if anyone can help me, that would be great. I would like to find out more about this rifle. Martine explained to me that he rebuilt it and made some modifications to it such as extending the stock and the forearm.
Martine takes aim at a parakeet and misses. Hands me the rifle along with 49 bullets left in the case and tells me to shoot them all. My wife and I start walking around the yard and after a few misses, we finally get one. By we, I totally mean my wife finally got one. I grab it and still alive, it violently bites me and wont let go! Ouch. I didn't realize just how powerful their bite is and this winged parakeet left my pointer finger pulsing in pain and eventually extremely bruised and unusable for the rest of our trip!
We mess around with them for over an hour and go through all 49 rounds. We end up getting 14 of them and no doubt our presence and shooting had at least temporary removed them all from the yard. It was surprisingly fun and brought back a lot of memories of my brother and I chasing small birds with our .22's around in our yard/woods as kids.
One final lunch with beef tenderloin again on the open fire barbeque pit and another type of potato salad. There was also another type of blood sausage that was supposed to be sweat rather than salty. It was extremely good and something else was used for filler rather than pig remains. We get our bags together and say goodbye and thanking everyone for the great experience we had and we hit the road. Long 4 hour drive into the city.
We got into the city and I don't know why I was but I was really shocked at just how big and busy it was. We came in going down the famous Don Julio drive and its an absolutely crazy street with at least 15 total lanes of traffic if not more. Its solid cars, buses, bikes and people. Santi dropped us off in front of the hotel and we said our goodbyes. While on the way here, Santi had called and confirmed details with a guy that was going to exchange some USD for us. It was set up for the guy with exchanging money to meet us at the hotel by 7. We get settled into our room and shortly after the front desk calls letting us know there is a guy down in the lobby for us. I lead him up to our room and the counting of 486 1000 dollar peso bills begins. That is what the exchange rate was for 10 100 USD was. So $1000USD for $486,000 PESO. Not going to lie, it was extremely awkward and weird doing the exchange this way with some kid that was probably only 20 years old. It is technically illegal but with an exchange rate significantly higher, we decided it was worth doing. I think the normal rate would have been like $1000USD for $275,000 PESO.
We knew that spending 1000USD was going to be a bunch to spend in basically 3 full days in the city but it was the minimum this kid was willing to exchange. Therefore, we planned on living life as best as we cold booking the best restaurants possible and even a plan to spend some time in one of the casinos. Little did we know it was going to be just about impossible to actually spend that much. Everything is STUPID CHEAP. Basically figure about 1/4 of what it would be here. Even the hotel is extremely nice for our measly rate of $120USD a night. We thought we were going cheap at that rate but turns out it actually is like a top notch hotel.
I'm going to stop my story here. Most our time spent in the city I'm sure my wife would rather me not tell about so I'll let you all use your imagination to what unlimited wine and pockets full of cash might lead to!
This final morning on the hunting portion of the trip, we got to sleep in until 730am which felt great. We sat around the breakfast table for almost 3 hours sipping on coffee and eating bread and jam. The plan Santi told us was to eat lunch and then he would be driving us to our hotel in the city himself.
While sitting at the table, Martine had walked away and then he comes back with a rifle and asks us something in Spanish. Santi kind of chuckles and then translates for us "Martine wants to know if you guys want to help him by shooting some parakeets?". Both Erica and I had a somewhat puzzled look on our faces. We weren't exactly sure if he was joking or not. He then explains (obviously through Santi translating) that they are an extreme nuisance and they cause a lot of damage to the home and its a pain to clean all of their poop off the roof. We go outside and I do immediately notice the mass of poop on the roof. Martine shows us how to operate his rifle which is a cool Diana .22 with a suppressor on it. I can't find the exact rifle online by googling it so if anyone can help me, that would be great. I would like to find out more about this rifle. Martine explained to me that he rebuilt it and made some modifications to it such as extending the stock and the forearm.
Martine takes aim at a parakeet and misses. Hands me the rifle along with 49 bullets left in the case and tells me to shoot them all. My wife and I start walking around the yard and after a few misses, we finally get one. By we, I totally mean my wife finally got one. I grab it and still alive, it violently bites me and wont let go! Ouch. I didn't realize just how powerful their bite is and this winged parakeet left my pointer finger pulsing in pain and eventually extremely bruised and unusable for the rest of our trip!
We mess around with them for over an hour and go through all 49 rounds. We end up getting 14 of them and no doubt our presence and shooting had at least temporary removed them all from the yard. It was surprisingly fun and brought back a lot of memories of my brother and I chasing small birds with our .22's around in our yard/woods as kids.
One final lunch with beef tenderloin again on the open fire barbeque pit and another type of potato salad. There was also another type of blood sausage that was supposed to be sweat rather than salty. It was extremely good and something else was used for filler rather than pig remains. We get our bags together and say goodbye and thanking everyone for the great experience we had and we hit the road. Long 4 hour drive into the city.
We got into the city and I don't know why I was but I was really shocked at just how big and busy it was. We came in going down the famous Don Julio drive and its an absolutely crazy street with at least 15 total lanes of traffic if not more. Its solid cars, buses, bikes and people. Santi dropped us off in front of the hotel and we said our goodbyes. While on the way here, Santi had called and confirmed details with a guy that was going to exchange some USD for us. It was set up for the guy with exchanging money to meet us at the hotel by 7. We get settled into our room and shortly after the front desk calls letting us know there is a guy down in the lobby for us. I lead him up to our room and the counting of 486 1000 dollar peso bills begins. That is what the exchange rate was for 10 100 USD was. So $1000USD for $486,000 PESO. Not going to lie, it was extremely awkward and weird doing the exchange this way with some kid that was probably only 20 years old. It is technically illegal but with an exchange rate significantly higher, we decided it was worth doing. I think the normal rate would have been like $1000USD for $275,000 PESO.
We knew that spending 1000USD was going to be a bunch to spend in basically 3 full days in the city but it was the minimum this kid was willing to exchange. Therefore, we planned on living life as best as we cold booking the best restaurants possible and even a plan to spend some time in one of the casinos. Little did we know it was going to be just about impossible to actually spend that much. Everything is STUPID CHEAP. Basically figure about 1/4 of what it would be here. Even the hotel is extremely nice for our measly rate of $120USD a night. We thought we were going cheap at that rate but turns out it actually is like a top notch hotel.
I'm going to stop my story here. Most our time spent in the city I'm sure my wife would rather me not tell about so I'll let you all use your imagination to what unlimited wine and pockets full of cash might lead to!
