Travel woes

This is Elise. We have had a great time touring the city but we are all ready to get away from this noisy apartment.  We are not used to all the traffic noise and late night partying from the hostel next door. I know the girls and I are really missing our pets too. Hopefully when we go out to the countryside tomorrow we will find some animals to love on. I hope tomorrow's journey goes smoothly. I find the roads to be frightening here because they are very curvy,clogged with slow moving trucks and motorcycles speeding around us. Drivers are forced to pass in less than safe manner to try to get around all the trucks. So far, that has been the only dangerous part of Colombia. I like Medellin better than most cities in the US. I would live here over Chicago any day. The weather is sunny and warm in the day and cool at night. While we have been here, it only rained at night. The scenery is beautiful, the people are nice and there are a lot of trees and green spaces.
On the downside, I am tired of not understanding what people are saying to me and not being able to communicate well.  The Mexicans and Guatemalans were much easier for me to understand. The Spanish here sounds a bit like Italian to my ears. It has that rhythm and cadence. I am hoping to settle someplace in Ecuador for a while and take some more Spanish classes.
Getting lost on the roads starts getting tiresome too.  So often the maps are inaccurate or the GPS lets us down.  On the drive from Cartagena to Medellin I decided that the new Garmin South America maps we downloaded are next to useless.  Mike still finds it has some value but after a GPS leads me astray a few times, I don't trust it.
We also have trouble using the phone.  I was trying a call a local number from Mike's cell phone the other day and could not complete the call. Turns out, you have to dial 03 if calling from a cell phone to a land line.  Now, we seem to be out of minutes, again. Uuugh.