Chaotic Cali

Nov. 26-28

The next logical stop down the road was Cali, although we usually try to avoid bigger cities we seem to visiting all of them so far. The scenery was beyond words as we snaked our way through the hills and valleys of Colombia. According the GPS we were not very high anymore (approx. 300m) but the valleys seem to go half way to China.

Part of the scenery that blows our minds is that the hillsides are planted with all types of crops, no matter how steep they are, the farmers are more persistent and get something planted there. Coffee and fruit seem to be the most popular and it is easy to see what the crops are based on what the vendors are selling on the side of the highway. While in Medellin we had read on Trip Advisor about a nice hotel in Cali, we found it with relative ease. The hotel was nice but the neighborhood left much to be desired. This did not stop us from walking around, we just made a point to keep moving. We found our way to the main market street, and to the iconic Cathedral in the central  district. We also found some great murals and graffiti (which seemed to be encouraged in Cali).

This also gave us another first for our list, the first bus driver strike. It seemed the drivers of the green and white buses were protesting something, leaving the drivers of the  blue buses to pick up the slack. Their buses seemed terribly overloaded with lots people standing in the aisle. 

After the tasty free breakfast at our hotel it was time to head out and see the world or at least the part from Cali to Pasto. The scenery just keeps getting better and better, we are continually impressed with the beauty of this country.

 

 

No mention of this on CNN, or the friendly people, or the overly friendly police who give us the thumbs up as we pass, or...the list can go on and on. So aside from amazing scenery we also see alot of road construction and today was no different, the sites on the highway are easily negotiated, however as we pull into Pasto, the chaos of construction detours is hard to keep up with and we ended up not really going into the city at all. This was fine with us as we just want to find a hotel  and get ready for crossing into Ecuador in the morning. This will be our first border crossing in SA so we are not sure what to expect. The other big thing on the agenda is a little architectural gem outside of Ipiales. We were worried about how loud the room would be as it was located on the highway side of the building and there has been all kinds of traffic going up and down the hill, but to our delight the traffic stopped around 10pm and we could get a peaceful sleep.