Hello From The Salsa Capital of Sth America, Of course I am here with Claire.
So much to catch up on. But i will just stick to the last few days and fill in the gaps some time later...
Colombia is amazing like a spainsh speaking brazil... Perfect ey. Funny to the accent is a little different to the andean perivain, ecuasorean spanish that claire and i have been used to. But we are keen to conutine meeting locals to improve our understanding of the colombian twang.
We took a 6am bus from Quito to the border town arriving at noon. MMM colombian border crossing was very easy actually, nice to have claire next to me, power in numbers right. Still dodgey as hell towns, and still not advised to travel thruough sthern colombia at night due to gurrila activity. And this was proved with numberous police check points.
A bus to cali from the border was around 10 11 hours, mmm let me just say i think the biggest danger to tourists may be the bus driver not th gurllia movenment or paramilitaries. It was the stuff of nightmares these moutanins roads at crazy speeds. dont worry looking up local carries airlines as i write this.
It is so safe, no need to worry. Cali is in the sth and most of the dangers ie gurrila and paramilitary groups are located around the edges of the country and in other mountainous areas.
Last night was our first night in Colombia and it was a good one. We were keen to check out the night life as that is what cali is famous for. We went to a few cheesy bars got lots of flashing lights and pumping salsa and Cumbia music.
Then we headed to this jazz bar that had salsa thrusday. IT was a great band, we had a little dance, meet the brother of the owner of the bar which meant trying all the cocktalis on the menu, funny how you sometimes just meet the right people. As claire and i were discovering our lack of cash. Still trying to work out the local currency. It is one of these where 1 usd is like 2000 pesos.. so we thought we were sorted for cash until we saw the prices and did the math. Anyway problem solved with our new friend. So fun to have little buddy back to party with. Tonight we need to find the real salsa scene tonight, claire is having a salsa lesson as we speak so she will be fired up for tonight i am sure.
Our plan is to have 4 weeks here in Colombia head to the Carribbean coast, with a stop in Medellin, former city ruled by pablo escobar, then historical town of cartengena, then spend a few weeks checking out the carribbean beaches, hopefully to a padi dive course!
and then get back to Quito Ecuador, for claire to get her flight home at the end of october.
Excellente mucho besos hasta pronto
Colombia's Flag
Map of Colombia