Cartagena- The beautiful sauna of Colombia

On Wednesday we finally made it to Cartagena.  I was very excited to go here as I had read it was an old walled city settled by the Spanish in the 1600's, and I am a sucker for that kind of history. We arrived, got in a taxi, and within 5 minutes were already driving through the old streets in the walled city.

The taxi dropped us off at our hotel, an old colonial mansion converted into a eight room hotel.  It was gorgeous.  We were a little early, so we dropped off our bags and set off to find some lunch and explore this great city.  

our hotel

love this mansion--errr hotel

We were sweating within seconds of crossing the street.  It is HOT in Cartagena.  We knew this going in, but we are so spoiled by the weather in Medellin that we were not quite prepared for how steamy a city it is. Regardless, Jay and I were both ready to sink our teeth into some seafood, and luckily there was a Cevicheria directly across the street.  I looked at my notes that I took about the city before we left (nerd alert!) and score! The cevicheria is the most recommended one and the one that Anthony Bourdain visited.  It did not disappoint, the ceviche was DELICOUS.  Seafood heaven, we have arrived.

cevicheria!

Jay and I started to walk around the city and I was immediately in love.  It is gorgeous.  It is exactly like you would picture an old Spanish colonial city surrounded by a wall to look like.  Every building is painted a vivid color, flowers are hanging from rooftops, cobblestones are lining the streets...it looks like a scene from a movie. While I was wandering around all googly eyed, Jay was ready to take a break again, so we found a nice little plaza, ordered up some beer, water, and ice cream, and watched the city go by.

just your average street in cartagena

huge doors, and then a door within a door to actually get in the building

Plaza Santa Teresa

park

Cartagena is definitely a tourist destination for Colombians, Europeans, and a lot of southeast Americans. I was surprised when we sat down to hear a few English conversations going on. That is a huge change from Medellin and Cali.  We enjoyed our rest and headed back to the hotel to check in.  Jay cooled off in the hotel pool and I found myself taking a little siesta in the hammock outside.  Once we had cooled off, we headed back out, and ate a delicious seafood pizza.  Since it was nighttime and a few degrees cooler, we walked around Cartagena some more, and found ourselves sitting on the castle wall, looking out at the ocean, and having a few drinks.  

wall to the ocean

old city wall, keeping out the bad guys

The next morning we had to get up early to go the beach. The water on Cartagena's coast is not very beautiful, since it is a port town.  However, you do have the option to buy a roundtrip ticket and go to one of the many islands off the coast for the day, which offer a little more of that Caribbean beach experience that you want.  Jay and I headed to the port, bought our tickets for Playa Blanca, and waited.  About and hour later we were zooming along the ocean in a crazy speed boat, and another hour later we were plopped right onto the beach.  

Playa Blanca is very beautiful. It is literally just a white sandy beach with green tropical forest behind it and crystal clear blue water in front of it.  The beach is lined with little cabanas, restaurants, and hammocks if you want to spend the night.  The cabanas and restaurants are pretty much just branches from a tree that were stuck in the ground with some cloth put over them, but it kept me from turning into a lobster so I'll take it!

playa blanca

fruit lady selling mago

the guy who made our coco locos.  he's using that machete to break open the coconut.

coco loco!

little cabanas along the beach

All along the beach locals come up to sell you seafood that they have literally just pulled from the ocean, massages, jewelry, snorkels, banana boats, and drinks.  Jay and I spent the day in the cabana eating ceviche and other seafood, having some drinks, frolicking (yep, frolicking) in the water, and getting a little massage. We decided to leave when the boats came back to pick everyone up. We had every intention of spending the night in hammocks on the beach, but after the day we thought it might be nice to go back to town, shower, and enjoy Cartagena a little more.  Plus, we did not bring enough money for any more food, hammocks, or the boat ride back in the morning, so that cemented the deal.  They don't take cards or have an ATM machine on the island, haha! That night we had another seafood dinner (so good here!) and walked around a little more. 

On Friday, we basically just continued our Cartagena eating and walking extravaganza until it was time to go to the airport.  Jay also managed to talk his way into getting an awesome haircut.  We were so excited to back to Medellin, our apartment, and to not be so sweaty. We were all ready to go, get back, and go out with our friends that night.  Then, we ended up sitting in an airport for 7 hours thanks to a delay and a crappy airline.  Definitely not the highlight of our trip.  Oh well, we made it back to Medellin around 12:30 am and are now ready to spend our last few days here.

Final thoughts on Cartagena:

1.  Cartagena is seriously stunning.  Yeah, it's a little steamy, but once you wipe the sweat from your eyes you realize there is a photo opportunity around every corner.

2.  Speaking of steamy, this is a city for lovebirds. Jay was impressed with Cartagena, but not as impressed as I was thanks to the heat and lack of a beautiful Colombian woman next to him, haha.  Meanwhile, I can fall in love with buildings and ice cream so I was good to go!

3.  If this is "touristy" Colombia, then this is still one of the least touristy places I have been.  There were vendors everywhere but a simple "no gracias" and they left you alone.

4.  If you love seafood, then this is the place to be. Anyone with a shellfish allergy might want to stay far away from here.  Or you can just go to Crepes y Waffles, which is definitely a solid choice.

5.  Never fly VivoColombia from Cartagena.  Worst.Airline.Ever.  They may or may not hand write your name on your ticket, may or may not put the wrong date on your ticket so security looks at you with crazy eyes and won't let you through, and they may or may not have 10 people working at the counter and only one person actually talking to anyone and highlighting the names on a list of any one checking in.  Avianca all the way!

When life gives you lemons, make limonada

There we were on Friday: backpacks packed, passports ready, excitement bubbling, and all set to go to Cartagena.  Jay was busy double checking the details about taking a bus to the airport, and I was checking us into our flight so we literally just had to roll up to the airport and get on the plane. Except Avianca wouldn't let me check in, no matter how many times I tried.  It was then we discovered that the untranslated email Avianca had sent Jay wasn't a "Thanks for choosing Avianca, we'll see you Friday" email, but a "We need you to call us within 24 hours of this purchase to confirm the charge to your credit card" email.  Our reservation had been cancelled since we had not called them, and so no beach filled Cartagena weekend for us.

***Lesson learned-always translate emails.

After our initial rush, with no luck, to try and find a flight that would take us there, we had about an hour where we were a little disappointed.  Then, we looked at the bright side.  Oh darn, we have to spend the weekend in the fabulous Medellin.  So, we picked ourselves up and started walking to a restaurant for dinner.  There is a popular street here called Calle Buena Mesa that is a street full of delicious restaurants, but somehow it kept eluding us.  Not tonight.  Since we were not going to eat fresh Caribbean seafood in Cartagena, we decided to eat at Piscos y Mariscos, a fancyish Peruvian restaurant that specializes in seafood.  Both our meals were amazing, and it turned out to be a pretty good night.

Saturday we decided to finally do the Metro Cable.  Medellin is surrounded by mountains, and there are many farms and barrios on the sides of the mountains.  In the past, it was really difficult for the people that lived up the mountainsides to get down to the city, it pretty much wasn't done.  When Medellin built their above ground metro, they included a metro cable that goes up the sides of the mountains.  It is functional part of Medellin, giving people transportation to and from the city. For visitors like us, it is basically the coolest sky ride ever.  

Jay and I took the metro down to the station that switches to the metro cable cars.  Unfortunately, we had poor timing, and got to the station when everyone else was going home for the day.  After waiting in line for about 20 minutes, we finally got to load into a car.  I kept thinking how it was so weird that I honestly felt like I was waiting in line for a ride, but this is actually an everyday part of these people's lives.  Our ascent up the mountain started immediately, and we had an amazing view of the whole city.  This would be a great place for a picture, but it is a little awkward to snap pictures when you are in a small car with 6 others who don't think they are on a ride for 15 minutes, haha!  As we headed up the mountain, we also had a bird's eye view of the different barrios.

We got to the station at the top, and were dropped off into the barrio of Santo Domingo.  We immediately loved it.  Everyone seemed to be out in the streets, eating, drinking, and visiting with eachother.  We walked around for awhile, and found an awesome view point.  We took some pictures, had a drink, bought some snacks, and watched a really cool neighborhood in action.

view from Santo Domingo

view of the barrio

little ninas that wanted us to take a picture of them, and wanted our bottle of water, haha!

finally tried banuelos, little fried balls of heaven

these street carts are everywhere!

it was a little windy on top of the mountain, my hair was everywhere

night view from the car 

After the metro cable we headed home and got ready for Saturday night in Medellin.  Jay and I had been out to some fun bars, but we had yet to experience any of the many popular discotecas that Medellin has to offer. Angela came over, and brought her muy guapo (and bonus-tall!) friend Camilo with her.  We hung out at our apartment for a little while, and then began our extremely fun night out in Medellin.  Angela and Camilo took us to a place in discoteca central, Barrio Colombia, which is surprisingly really close to our apartment. It was actually raining that night,  so we only made it out to one of the discotecas, but I think we got a pretty good experience. I think it was pretty equivalent to a Vegas style club, except with more spanish music and better service. There was lots of dancing, music, dancing, music, go go dancers, dancing, music...it was awesome.  I wish I had taken pictures inside but I was too busy dancing, haha!

Doing some salsa dancing before we head out

Jay and a discoteca ready Angela

A not so discoteca ready me and Camilo 

On Sunday, Jay and I had made plans to go to La Piedra del Penol. We had heard about it from our spanish teacher, and after researching it on the internet, it seemed like an awesome place to go.  It is in the town of Guatape, a tiny town about 2 hours outside Medellin.  La Piedra del Penol is a massive rock that you can climb up, and it has amazing views.  

After a very late start, Jay and I took the metro to the bus station and figured out how to take a bus to Guatape.  We were pretty proud of ourselves for figuring this all out, but our elation was short lived once we realized we were on the worst bus ride of our lives an unfortunate bus ride. It was a long, loud, crammed, twisty way to Guatape.  We were pretty happy to see that rock at the end.  

view of Piedra del Penol from where the bus dropped us off

We got off the bus (at the wrong place, but the rock is huge so it was easy to find) and started to walk towards it.  Still a little queasy from our ride, we took a break at a little restaurant and enjoyed some guanabana juice.  That was when I realized how GORGEOUS Guatape is.

Guatape from the restaurant

Once we felt better we trekked over to the rock, and checked out some of the things around it before we went up.

open grill 

of course there is a place for salsa dancing, should you feel the urge after you  climb down the rock

Then we finally started to climb the rock. 

stairs only, this is one steep rock

And then we made it to the top.  It probably is one of the prettiest views I have ever seen.

360 degree view of this

Jay's panoramic view

Jay had a friend getting married that day in Chicago, so we celebrated our climb and cheers'd to her atop the rock.

After we had our fill of the beautiful view, we went back down and had our fill of some Colombian food before going back to the area where the buses pick people up to return to Medellin.  We asked some ladies where we could buy tickets, and we basically understood that there were no more tickets being sold and the line outside was for the last bus of the evening back to Medellin. Oops. 

So, our only options were to stay the night in Guatape or try and figure this out. We stood in the line of people waiting to get on the bus with some hope that we might get some more information about this.  Luckily, there was a very sweet older couple next to us that took some pity on the "americanos without tickets."  The guy spoke a little english, and told us that if there was room on the bus that we would be able to get on, no problem.  The only thing was that the line was pretty long, so it looked like there would be no room.  Then he talked to a policeman, the policeman waved a different bus down, the little man ran over and talked to bus driver, and the bus driver made room on his bus for us.  We were so thankful for the kindness of all these people!!  We then had a much more pleasant ride back to Medellin, complete with blasting spanish music and way less motion sickness.

It was an epic win of a weekend.

And thanks to Jay's uber-slick skills at finding inexpensive plane tickets, we still get to go to Cartagena!  We'll be soaking up the Caribbean Wednesday-Friday, hooray!

zapatos

Angela:  Estefany, you like my shoes?

Me:  I love them!

Angela:  Next time I see you, I will give you some shoes.

Me:  Mis pies son mas grande que tus pies.

Angela:  What size?

Me:  40.

Angela: Ohhh siiii, my feet are small. 

Me: I have big feet.

Angela: Si.  Americans have big feet.

Another day....

Jay:  Stef, these shoes are cool?

Me:  Yes, very cool, you need to get those.

Jay to sales guy:  Can I try these on?

Sales guy: What size?

Jay:  45 (size 11)

Sales guy:  (Confused look)We don't have that size in Colombia.

It's official.  Jay and I have the biggest feet in Medellin.  

Week 2: Working our minds, bodies, and tastebuds

Day 13
After our fun weekend in Cali, we were ready to get back to (vacation) business in Medellin.  Sunday night we were craving to have something, anything, that resembled a vegetable.  Since many portions of this city take the day of rest quite literally, we were having a little bit of a hard time finding a place that was open.  We ended up wandering over to Parque Lleras again, mostly because we knew how to walk to it and that it was going to be our best bet for having a restaurant with the lights on.  Ironically, we discovered a great steakhouse that had exactly what we were craving:  a huge, ginormous, heap of vegetables salad.  Yum yum.  Also, they had some fresh fruit juices available, and I could practically feel my body hanging the "welcome back" sign up for all the fresh fruit and vegetables we ate.

Day 14

Our morning started with a kind of hilarious but effective work out.  Both Jay and I are people who like to exercise, and although we have been walking a lot, doing salsa lessons, and taking the stairs as much as possible, we both felt like we needed a little more to make our bodies feel goooooood.  Especially since much of my "walking a lot" involves walking to the chocolate shop. Our friend Bobby from Cali had told us about his little fitness routine he was doing over there in his studio apartment, and Jay googled it and it seemed like something we could handle.  So we did our little circuit training routine, and were actually a little sore from it the next day!  Success!  We took our endorphin filled bodies to spanish class, and Yadi was proud of us for doing our homework in Cali.  Then she blew our minds with a super tough lesson.

After we left class in a daze, I convinced Jay that we needed to go check out another park area of Medellin, Parque de Pies Descalzos (Barefoot Park).  This place was fascinating to me for some reason.  And Lonely Planet said it was a must-see, so we needed to go!  We got to the park and ate some lunch while we observed the park in action.  Basically, it is a huge park with lots of little sections that are meant to be a different sensory experience for your feet.  In most of the sections you are not allowed to wear shoes.  There was a little reflection pond to splash your feet in, a huge sand/gravel area to walk in, some crazy stones sticking out of the ground to climb on, and a bamboo forest.  Being there, we also discovered where all the Medellin families take their kids to play.  There were kids everywhere!  They were being pretty cute in the water and sand pit thing, but neither of us much felt like competing with them to get our feet in, so we opted to go through the relatively kid free bamboo forest.  

sand area with stone things to walk on

reflection pond and some of the park

mystical bamboo forest, ha!

  

After our journey through the bamboo forest, we decided we needed a change of scenery and headed up to Laurales.  We had only seen Laurales at night, and we had apparently missed out on what an adorable neighborhood of Medellin it actually is.  We took a cerveza break at a restaurant, then decided to walk a little bit to see the 'hood before we took a taxi back.  Our walk was going so nicely that we actually ended up walking all the way back to our apartment!  Luckily, our long stroll took us right to the chocolate shop by our place, and it would have been rude not to stop in and say hello and perhaps pick up a few things while we were there.

Day 15

More spanish class, more spanish learned!  Our friend Angela had invited us over to her apartment for some lunch and afternoon swimming, so we headed over there after class.  She had told us that she had a good view, but we had no idea how serious she was about this till we got there. Her apartment is located way up a hill/mountain in Laurales, and you can really see a lot of Medellin from her apartment building. We splashed around in the pool, admired the vista, and hung out for awhile. Angela speaks about as much English as we speak Spanish, so our conversations are probably pretty hilarious to an outside observer with all the hand gestures and wild explanations going on. She had made us a tasty chicken pasta dish.  It was a really great afternoon and it was really sweet of her to go through all that trouble for us.  Before we left that night, she took us to the top of her building so we could see more of Medellin by night.  It was gorgeous and I wish had taken some fancy point and shoot camera training so I could better capture how pretty all this stuff is.

Medellin by night

Angela y Jay (or Jake, as Colombians keep calling him, haha!  It is hard for Colombians to say just the "Jay" part)

Day 16

Jay and I completed our little work out routine in our apartment again, and then headed over to Spanish class.  Today's class was slightly easier on our brains, and we left feeling pretty good about it.  We did a little grocery shopping, relaxed and did our homework, and then met up with Angela at Calle 33 for a little while.  Angela took us to a "rock" bar where they played a mix of American rock songs with a lot of Spanish songs.  I was telling Angela about my deeeeeeeep love for Spanish music, and told me she would put together a little compilation for me.  I practically jumped out of my seat from excitement.  I apologize in advance to anyone that is going to be riding in my car or hanging out at my house when I get back.  It's going to be all Spanish all the time for awhile, haha!

Day 17

Jay and I started our day off with another salsa lesson.  Mr. Owwwwwwwch Andres was all booked up, so we had a different instructor, the very handsome and very entertaining German.  German taught us some new moves, and had Jay twirling me all over the place.  German would count/dance and yell "Chufla! Doble! Triple! Yeeeeeessss, verrrryyyyyyyyyy gooooood" each time we went through the routine.  It was awesome.

After salsa we hurried up and made ourselves presentable for Yadi.  We went to class, and got to learn a other verb tense!  Hooray!  After class, we decided to cross a restaurant off of our Medellin bucket list, Crepes y Waffles.  We have seen this place all over, and at first I thought it was just a cheesy chain restaurant, but then both Yadi and Bobby gushed about how delicious it is.  They did not lead us astray, Crepes y Waffles is indeed quite yummy. 

After lunch we made a half-hearted attempt to shop for some stuff, and then headed home.  Jay was just wanting to relax, and I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to go check out the Museo D Antioquia in the Plaza Botero we had run into the other day. I hadn't really ventured out on my own very much, as it is a little intimidating being the only blonde/tallest girl around, not speaking the language all that well, and not really knowing where I am.  But I did know exactly how to to get to the museum, so I thought it might be nice to give Jay a break from me check out more of Medellin.  

The Museo D Antiquia is awesome.  The building itself is beautiful, and very peaceful inside, giving a stark contrast to all the hustle of downtown Medellin outside.  It also houses many works from the artist Botero, who is a very famous contemporary artist and is from Medellin.  All of his paintings and sculptures are done in such a way where the subjects are projected to be very voluminous, and they are pretty interesting to look at.  He has also dedicated a lot of his more recent work in the past 15 years to display the way that Medellin has changed and grown from it's less than desirable past.

Museo D Antioquia

Botero Sculptures

Marie Antoinette and Luis XV1

Famous Pablo Escobar Dead painting

From the museum I had been able to see some interesting side street off of the plaza, so I decided to go check those out before going back to the apartment.  One street was about 500 yards of fruit stands, and it was difficult to not just grab a grape off of the vines they were hanging from.  I bought myself another guanabana juice, and walked around a little more, taking in the sights from Plaza Botero.

fruit as far as the eye can see

Plaza Botero

Medellin knows how to do dessert.  How anyone is skinny here I will never know.

This weekend we are leaving Medellin again and going to check out the (from what we hear) gorgeous Cartagena.  I'm so excited for some beaches, shorts, and Caribbean fun in the sun!

What I have learned about Medellin so far....

Now that we have been here for a little while, I feel like I can describe some generalizations about Medellin. And there are a lot. Jay and I talk about them all the time.

1.  The weather here cannot be beat, and it ties with San Diego as being a perfect climate.  Except in Medellin it really is perfect all the time.  It stays 75-80 degrees 24 hours a day. Apparently there is a rainy season, but we are not here for it, so I am just going to believe that everyone here enjoys this perfection year round.  And thanks to the perfect weather, the plant life here is like a tropical oasis everywhere.  Since Medellin is almost 5000 feet above sea level, the city doesn't have the bugs that usually come with a tropical oasis.  Win!

2.  Colombians know how to make coffee.  It really is that good.  Juan Valdez is a genius.

3.  Guess what is better than the coffee?  The chocolate.  Words cannot describe my surprise, then elation when I tasted my first piece of Colombian chocolate.  I researched it, and yes, apparently the chocolate here is just as good as the coffee.  Who knew?  Our apartment is located right next to a chocolate/coffee shop, which we have been to three times already.  Every day it is a mental battle debating on whether or not to stop in and show the owner how my Spanish is improving get more chocolate.

4.  Surprisingly not that good?  The food.  It's not bad, it's just not good either.  And Colombians really love themselves a deep fryer.  Sooooo many things are fried.  There is also so much pork!  Which is good every once in awhile, but I was afraid that by the end of this trip I might actually turn into a pig.  They also cannot get enough of ham (yes, I know it is a form of pork) and cheese.  Instead of living on a diet of chocolate and coffee though, we have found some good restaurants and they do have a wide variety of different international foods to choose from in Medellin.  We still like to try the different kinds of Colombian food, but at least we can find some other options too.

5.  The women in Medellin are gorgeous.  I have to give Jay some props for not getting whiplash yet from the parade of beautiful women that walk by every day.  Our first few days were spent where all the beautiful people gather, but now that we have seen some other parts of Medellin (with more, ahem, natural women), it is still safe to say men have it pretty easy here.

6.  They are not shy about the plastic surgery here.  Like I said before, our first few days here we were staying in a part of  Medellin where the beautiful people seemed to congregate.  I had read and read that many woman get breast implants, so I am not surprised by the amount of boob jobs, but it is crazy how many butt implants there seem to be.  It's like every woman took a picture of J. Lo's butt to the doctor and, well, that is what you see.    

7.  Colombians know how to dance.  And they do dance, a lot and anywhere where there is music. It is obvious that everyone here has been dancing from a young age, moving those hips with their mom, dad, grandma, cousin, until it is time to go out into the world and show what you got.  Here in Medellin they really like salsa, rumba, and reggaeton.  Some crossover stuff too.  

8.  Malls are somewhat of a big deal here.  Every place we looked at to live in usually had a description that ended with "and it's so close to _____ mall!"  They are kinda like malls in the US, but they also have grocery stores, a soccer field, CASINOS, gyms, and many other things.  So far I have managed not to go to a casino yet, but I am sure it is only a manner of time before I am yelling double down in Spanish.

9. No one speaks English. No one.  Our real estate guy was one of the first people we ran into that was Colombian and spoke English.  Then we learned that he spent K-8 in New York. We have also heard some English in the airport, and our hotel guys had a limited amount of phrases he knew.  But if you are out and about, it is Spanish only.  Which is good for us, it makes us practice more.  

10.  No one has blonde hair.  Especially blonde curly hair.  Sticking out like a sore thumb does not even begin to describe it.  I have heard from a few that I look Argentine though, weirdly enough.

11.  No one wears shorts or flip flops in Medellin, and if you do it looks weird.  The ironic thing is that every window in the mall has a mannequin wearing shorts and flip flops.  I am baffled by this, but apparently the people of Medellin refuse to fall for the propaganda the mannequins are displaying. I should have brought more jeans.

12.  Guanabana juice is the best.  

13.   No matter the time of day, it is ok to eat an empanada and have a Club Colombia (Colombian beer) in your hand.

Cali- Not THAT Cali, but Cali, Colombia

Although Medellin is amazing, Jay and I decided that we needed to see some of the other cities that Colombia has to offer.  We booked a flight to Cali, Colombia, and arrived there on Friday.

Upon arrival, we could tell Cali was going to be different.  Once again, the airport is pretty far outside the city, but this time we took a funny little bus where Jay and I were squeezed into the front seat and rode our way into Cali.  After the bus dropped us off at the bus terminal, we got a taxi and our driver drove to our hostel.  One thing I noticed right away was that although it was the middle of the day, no one was out. Once we got out the taxi, we realized why:  it is VERY hot in Cali.  I wouldn't leave the house either.  They should call it Cali Caliente.  (Sorry, I couldn't help the joke!)

We checked into our funny little french hostel and ate some delicious lunch.  Then we went up to the room and were hit with another heatwave.  Not really knowing what to do, we took a little rest and then headed out to the large park across the street.  I called our friend Bobby (well, my friend Jeff's friend Bobby, but now is our friend too) and we made plans to meet up later.

El Gato de Rio

Still too hot to walk around, we went back to the hostel and hung out until Bobby showed up.  He showed us around a little bit and we ate some empanadas at this patio restaurant down by the river.  We had a great time and saw some of the culture Cali had to offer.  We were in San Antonio, which is the bohemian artsy district of Cali.  The buildings are painted in bright colors and have a unique character to them.  There is also a lot of art graffiti on the walls, adding interesting pictures to every turn you make.

Not my idea, a colombian made me pose like this!

Jay on the streets of Cali (his shorts adding more color to the city, ha!)

After Bobby led us back to the hostel Jay and I got ready for the night. We ate dinner at a pizza place where you choose from a very long list of pizzas you would like and they bring you little mini pizzas of all your choices.  Afterwards we went to a cuban restaurant and listened to some live cuban salsa music and drank some mojitos.

The next day  we went to a little art park and perused the little shops and park. It started to get hot again, so we decided to check into a hotel with air conditioning.  We found one in the downtown area, headed over there, and checked in.  We did a little spanish homework, rested up, and started the night.

Checking out the park by our hostel, where we ran into a comedy show

After taxiing to a restaurant that looked promising online but turned to out to be out of business in person, we ended up near our old hostel again and had dinner at a restaurant with some more live music.  After that, we headed over to Tin Tin Deo, which is where some of Cali's best salsa dancers go to get their salsa on.  Bobby had told us this was a very fun place to go, and since Jay and I were obviously salsa masters from our one lesson, I was pretty pumped to see the famous Cali salsa dancers doing what they do best.

Man, these people can dance.  It was amazing.  I should have been moving a lot because there was some great salsa music and it was a dancing bar, but I could not take my eyes off all these incredible dancers.  My eyes got a slight break when we started talking to some British and Irish people, which led to us talking to some other British people.  The bars in Cali have to close at 3, but there are several options for after the bars.  One set of our new British friends invited us to a house party with some other Colombianos, so we went along for the ride.

House party this wasn't. There was a DJ playing more salsa, all kinds of people dancing, other playing musical instruments to go with the music, empanadas being sold, some sort of indoor garden, and everyone just having a good time.  We even got to play some of the instruments, I got to dance and show off my extreme gringo salsa, and we left thinking "What just happened?"

our british friends adding to the music

Hanging out with the Brits and Colombians

Sunday was spent laying in the shade at the park reading and doing spanish homework, trying to stay cool before our flight back to the perfect weather of Medellin.  We said good bye to Bobby, and were very appreciative of our friend for telling us about some great spots in Cali!

Final thoughts about Cali:

1.  I can appreciate that much of the city unites in the belief that if it is too hot, it's best just to stay inside and blast salsa music.

2.  People here can, and want to, dance like nobody's watching.  But they know everyone is watching.

3.  Cali is a little, for lack of a better term, rougher than Medellin.  It has it's own beauty to it, but it is not as obvious as Medellin's.

4.  Not as much plastic surgery as I expected to see.

5.  Dogs were everywhere!! Including this adorable little guy: