Colombia Real

Semana Santa or Easter was spent in Cali. For those who don't know, Cali is a major city in Colombia 500 odd kilometres due south-west of Bogotá. Cali is famous for its salsa, beauty and women, it’s also infamous for its Cartels of old and guerrillas of new. The drive between the two cities reveals some of the fantastic terrain of this divers county. We wound between fantastic peaks as the road took above the clouds then down into the valleys and into different climates. Rivers, forests, arid cliffs and cane fields are all part of the journies passing entertainment.
Cali is a well known party town, it is also a firmly religious place as well these two things colliding rather spectacularly at easter with a large number of great salsa clubs being very conspicuously unoccupied. Our small group of world travellers, bemused locals and Rolos (Bogotanians) proceeded to get half cut at chipi chai, a mall, complete with bars then move to the septima (7th street) to continue drinking. This lasted until they kicked us out and we took all the people and a few bottles of aguardiente to Freddy's cousins place (don't ask) where we chatted and remained comfortably inebriated until about 6 in the morning, which was time to call a taxi.

The following day we rested and played cards in the evening …. Until about 4 am at which time the paisa was getting a little testy as he wasn’t winning enough for his liking.

A trip to the zoo formed the highlight of the next day, the zoo is nice and happens to have an Emu in the same enclosure as a llama, which I thought was amusing. Pictionary, Charades and uno accompanied the night’s carton and liquor creating a decent measure of laughter until about 4 in the morning, once more.

An in car tour of downtown and some other interesting parts of Cali the next morning and a family reunion for Gilbert’s birthday that night. I cooked dinner for the family (Michael style asian food) which numbered about 15 or 20.

After a horrible 13 hour trip in the car home, painfully punctated by standstill traffic (on highways ! ) back home and happily accosted by my bed.

The next day part of Cali exploded in a pointless display of the FARC's capacity for violence.

Colombia real.