Cali & Popayán

I ended up getting into Cali right on time on Wednesday. By the time I get checked into my hostel and situated, though, it was already 11:00 PM. At that hour on a weekday it's pretty slow in town, and I ended up hitting a dive bar in the neighborhood I was staying in. I ended up meeting a bunch of people, including an American who was taking a 4-month break from her job. After the bar closed we ended up going to a small party at the house of one of they guys there, an artist that makes handicrafts typical of his ethnic group. Apparently he's quite a well-known guy. My Spanish is hardly perfect, but for the life of me I had no idea what he was talking about. My impression is that he was one of these flaky, conceptual artist types, and I got the impression that whatever he was talking about would have been blather even if he was speaking in English.

My American friend that I met there ended up heading to Popayán together the next day. It was a several hour long bus ride with some fabulous mountain scenery on the way. Probably the best part was all the snacks. Up until the point where we got out of the city, whenever the bus stopped in traffic or at a light guys would jump on the bus selling little snacks like raw coconut pieces, fresh fruit, fresh squeezed juice, pastries, etc., and then jump off at the next stop. So you can score all kinds of little treats. It’s kind of like a drive-through, but in reverse.

Popayán was nice, although I wasn't bowled over by it. I got some good photos during sunset, though. You can check them out here: http://picasaweb.google.com/tunafishandgrits/Colombia

We returned from Popayán to Cali the next afternoon. There was plenty of time so that I could grab a couple meals and do some walking around. I never got too much in the way of history or fancy photos, but I knew that was going to be the case before even going there. The appeal of Cali isn’t it's history or architecture, but the nightlife (and reputedly the women, although I didn't see anything special).

This was a Friday night, so it was perfect timing to hit the salsatecas. For everybody reading this that isn't one of my salsa geek friends I'll spare the gory details, but in summary the salsa style is very different there. As such I wasn't up to my usual standard, but I got by just fine. I noticed a fair amount of surprised faces on the ladies I was dancing with. As far as I could tell, they were thinking something along the lines of "Whoa! The tall white guy isn't that great, but he actually knows what the hell he's doing!" (which now that I think of it is probably not too different from what they're thinking at the Latin clubs in Chicago).

I had one more full day in Cali which I spent scarfing street food and milling around. I wouldn't say the food is fantastic, but you can get some really good stuff if you know what to grab. The highlights are all the tropical fruits. They’ve got all kinds of fruits that even a hard-core foodie like myself has never heard of (lulo, anyone?), and they're all fantastic. The overall quality of all the produce here is phenomenal, so you can just get some fresh fruit or fresh-squeezed juice at a little mom-and-pop dive and it tastes live heaven. Food-wise, he best thing I had there was a stew called sancocho with chicken, yuca, and green plantains. It was a very good thing that I liked it, as I had it twice in one day. I had it for lunch when I ordered it not by name but just as the daily special. I then went to dinner later, looked at the menu, and said, “Ah, sancocho, I remember reading about that. I really must try it”. I was mildly annoyed when they brought it out and I realized it was the same thing I had for lunch, but hey, it was good, so I got by OK.

While eating lunch on this day I started chatting with a Colombian gal that lives in Miami. The restaurant I was eating in was her brother’s place, whom she was back visiting for her niece’s confirmation. We ended up catching up later that night and heading out to the clubs, first to a salsa place and then a mixed club. This was nice as I didn’t have to worry about going to some of these places (many of which are a long cab ride outside of the city) by myself. I realized this might not be advisable when I got into one of the cabs alone the night before to be taken to a salsa club in the outskirts and the conversation with the cab driver went something like this (in my half-assed Spanish):

Ryan – “I would like to go to Juanchito, please. Chongó.”

Cabbie – “Where are your friends?”

Ryan – “I’m alone.”

Cabbie – “And you want to go to Chongó by yourself?”

Ryan – “Yes.”

Cabbie – “You sure?”

Ryan – “Yes.”

Cabbie – “Really?”

Ryan – “Um, maybe. Not a good idea?“

Cabbie (now realizing he’s about to lose a fare for a 20-minute ride) – “Oh, never mind. Let’s go.”

However, I felt pretty safe once I got there. You had to get frisked by security in bulletproof vests and walk through a metal detector to get into the club, so what’s to worry about? Anyways, I did feel a little more comfortable going out with a native the next night, so it worked out well.

I’m actually finishing and uploading this post in Cartagena. This place is incredible. I’ll fill in on details in a couple days.