One Hot Day in Cali

Most of the travellers we have met have been heading in the same direction as us, north. There have been a few though that have visited the countries we were heading to and I usually ask them for suggestions and recommendations. Perceptions of each place vary so much, so much depends on each person's interests, the kinds of places they like to stay in, time of year, festivals and special events etc. Karen and Angela, who we met in Cusco got robbed in Cali, didn't like it nor did they feel safe there. Francesco and Carolina, who we met in Nasca, on the other hand, loved Cali because they were there during the Salsa Festival. I saw a video of the dancing they posted on Facebook and it looked awesome! So since we had to stop in Cali in transit, we decided to stay there for a day and enjoy the city.

There has been a few times now, when we have taken a taxi and the driver didn't know the address and ended up driving us around a bit. The driver finally found Maison Violette, our hostel in the San Antonio neighbourhood, and we could get out of our cold weather bus clothes and into less clothing. Cali was HOT and I was excited to wear a dress!

One thing we noticed about Colombia is that they have tourist information booths in the most logical places and it didn't take us long to get a map and figure out where we wanted to go that day. Maybe it's something in the air, the friendliness of Colombians, the music playing in the restaurants that makes you feel like dancing, something... but we liked Colombia immediately. We found several plaza's brimming with people-sexy women with crazy curves, children feeding pigeons and lots of vendors selling fresh fruit and juice. I was taking a photo of the Justice building, zooming in with the camera and I see a hand waving in the photo, which I ignored. Then I got tapped on the should by a police officer and got told that I couldn't take photos of the court building. This was a first on this trip but makes sense when you think about the history of Colombia. Things don't end up well for people who are photographed in front of the court. This all happened after I snapped a photo so it has somehow become more valuable now.

Some of the old colonial buildings in Cali are still there like the La Merced and La Ermita Churches, but most of centre is modern and new. After lunch, we visited the cats, and Ramanan made sure to get in some pussy jokes. In the evening, we wandered around San Antonio, the old colonial neighbourhood our hostel was in, and chilled with the locals at the park. We liked Colombia even more after our second day.