Cheese & Chocolate, Minutos y Arepas

Our flight from out of the jungle to Cali was via Bogotá and we had to spend at the airport over 6 hours.That's all we saw from Colombia's capital city: pretty uncomfortable chairs, but the worst was the airport TV which was located all over the place, making lots of noise. When the finally switched it off we enjoyed few minutes of silence until the airport shops started to open and play loud music.

Colombian hygiene - wipe the can before you drink

On Monday 23rd of April we arrived to sunny and dry Cali. After two weeks spent in hot and humid climate of the rain forest it was a big change for us. The biggest advantage was that finally we could dry our towels and we also decided to make a laundry. In Cali, we were hosted by Leonardo and to be more accurate we slept at his mum's place. She was very kind, helpful and the hot chocolate made by her in the morning was simply wonderful. Leonardo is also a hard-working person (it seems to be a rule among couchsurfing hosts in South America) but he managed to spend with us some time. On the day of our arrival we didn't visit too much as we were pretty tired and Karolina got sick after eating arepa (ground corn pancake filled with cheese).

Jovita - the queen of Valle del Cauca

The graffiti in Cali is pretty impressive (the girl on the right looks just like Rebeca;)

More graffiti and fruit seller

The next day, Leonardo invited us for lunch. He advised that we could easily get to the restaurant in around half an hour from his mum's place. We were late because it turned out to be a 1-hour walking at midday when the sun was, let's say, really unpleasant. The lunch was delicious and relatively cheap as there was a Tuesday two-for-one promotion. We had two big plates of seafood for 20000 Colombian Pesos (10 US$) in Bella Mar Restaurant. Leonardo and his girlfriend had to go back to work and we decided to watch Barcelona vs. Chelsea in one of the bars in the centre... Fucking Chelsea!!! They didn't play football at all and they didn't deserve t get to the final, but "el futbol es asi" in J. Cruyff words. At least the atmosphere at the bar was nice, with supporters of both teams and the beer cold and tasty.

No need to go to Rio to see Jesus - come to Cali...or to Swiebodzin (Poland:)

After the match we decided to follow the route proposed by Leonardo. From the bar to the monument "El gato del río y las novias del gato" (The cat of the river and its girlfriends), then to el mirador de Sebastián Belalcazar (Spanish founder of "Santiago de Cali", as the city is officially known) and from there to the "Iglesia de San Antonio", a beautiful church in a hill with a nice park and good views from the city.

the we called Leonardo and waited for him in a small and cute bar called "El alcornoque", already in the way down of San Antonio's hill, where a crazy cat made us laugh while drinking our first "Costeña" (One of many Colombian beer brands).

View from San Antonio

No idea what is a root and what is already a branch

Gato del rio

And Las novias del gato (cat's girlfriends)

When Leonardo and his girlfriend arrived, we took a road up to the mountains for around 18 km through a thick fog up to a restaurant conveniently named "La neblina" (The Spanish diminutive for "fog"), already at around 2000 m above sea level (Cali is around 1100 m). There we finally enjoyed very nice arepas and tried the typical Colombian Chocolate & Cheese. Sounds weird but tastes delicious.Put the cheese into the hot chocolate, let it melt for a couple of minutes and yammi!

Chocolate&cheese

El Alcornoque - a really cool spot discovered by chance

With Leonardo and his girlfriend in Neblina

We came back home having a nice chat about Colombian, Spanish and Polish cultural differences and went to sleep, in order to wake up early and head to Ecuador the next morning.

Cali's street in the morning

We left home quite late finally (what a surprise ;p) and took a bus to Pasto around 1pm. We bargained the price of the ticket, as almost everything in Colombia, and got it for 10000 Pesos cheaper each (around 5 US$). Even with that, probably we still payed more than locals. However, the journey was horrible. The road was a mess (bear in mind that is a main road between Colombia and Ecuador) and the drivers drove like crazy. There are always two of them in such a long journeys, and although one more than the other, both were crazy.

"In case of dizziness ask for a bag" 

Gas station?

We arrived to Pasto around 9pm and just getting out from the bus there were already few people surrounding us offering everything: "taxi, hotel, drugs?". We decided one of the guys that looked all right and offered us a room for 3 US$ per person in a private double room. We walked few "quadras" (blocks) and got to the Hotel Paola in a suspicious street. The price was true (12000 Pesos for both of us per night) and the room didn't look bad (TV, a bathroom with hot shower and a double bed), so we decided to spend there our only night in Pasto. The guy that took us to the Hotel asked then for 1000 Pesos (0.50 US$) which was a good price for finding for us what we were looking for (a cheap room close to the station) and taking us away from the crowd that gathered around us in the station when they all realised how "gringos" we are. Once we left the backpacks and accommodated in the room, we decided to go for a walk and try to eat something. Paola advised us that was a pretty dangerous area but we decided to go anyway. We came back after few minutes... We were in Pasto just to spend the night, not to get robbed and it really looked pretty bad. So, we ate some bread that was left from the journey, drank a juice from the hotel and watched a movie in English with Spanish subtitles and went to sleep.

Minutos - the points where you can use mobile phone to call different operators - are simply everywhere 

Finally in the morning we got to Ipiales (Colombian border city) in a van. Of course, again we had to bargain the price of the ticket. Once there we got a stamp and crossed the border walking to Ecudaor.  After that we met a couple from Medellin who were travelling with their child in the same bus from Cali to Pasto. We recognised them cos people from this region of Colombia use the word ´parsero´. We shared a taxi to Tulcan bus terminal. Before we even left the taxi there were already people around the car offering us tickets to Quito. We´ll soon give you some more details about Ecuador which so far is our favourite South American country.

Welcome to Ecuador