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Published: October 15th 2012
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Teatro
Ballet for the ladies! Cali We set off for Cali on the mid-day minibus and once again were treated to the driving antics of a former Wacky Racer! Arrived in Cali at tea-time and jumped in a taxi to our Hotel Americana. our taxi driver was a friendly chatty chap who told us in more or less these words that the city was too hot and crap and so was the coffee! We thought we'd save judgment til the following day...he was right about the coffee! Our Hotel was lovely clean and modern and defo had the best shower to date ( we say that in every hostel/hotel/hammock/camp we stay in but this one defo was the best!) The city itself felt fairly safe to us, there is no tourist infrastructure as such so what you see is what you get which was actually a nice change. There is a definite edge to the place and it's a bit more rough and ready than the other places we've visited in Colombia but as always we used our common sense. On the Friday evening, we went to see the Ballet at the local Theatre. It was a real treat and a mixture of modern Salsa
Depor v America
Footy for the boys! influenced ballet with traditional ballet to the music of JS Bach. The dancers performances were flawless and up there with some of the best I've seen.
On our way home from the Theatre, we spoted some rather manly, barely dressed prostitutes at the corner of our street. Mr P said he didn't think they were men and would need to take a closer look. I BEGGED Mr P to take a closer look but after giving it some more thought, he decided to decline! Funny as!!
To restore the equilibrium, Mr P found us another footy match to watch and so I'll hand over to our roving reported Big Nick for the latest update
Part 13 of the SA futbol tour - Colombia Liga B Sporting Depor 1 America de Cali 3
This was a local derby played between America who are huge and Depor who aren't! The recently renovated (2011) stadium, Parque Guerra was impressive considering this was a Liga B game and was about half full, ALL America fans, we only saw 2 Depor fans, a couple of young kids handing leaflets out stating that the teams were friends not enemies - interesting.
Popayan
The white city Quite often we have been to football games in SA in huge stadiums where the stadiums are only half full - Bolivia being the exception. The game itself was pretty poor with America easily winning 3-1. And so, we left the busy noisy city of Cali and headed for our next Colombian city - Popayan.
We arrived in Popayan mid-afternoon after another crazy Colombian driver took us through the Wacy Races ringers!! First impressions were that Popayan would be a lovely quiet city compared to the chaos of Cali.
We'd booked into Hostel Trail for 3 nights, a basic, clean, Scottish owned hostel (there was evidence of this with the Scottish flags as curtains and the numerous photos of Edinburgh and the highlands that adorned the wall) Got a really good welcome, useful info and a map off the guy at Reception so it was a good start. We spent the remainder of our first day exploring the beautiful white Colonial streets and immediately fell in love with the place. We felt very safe walking round after dark and the streets were busy and bustly. There wasn't an awful lot to occupy us in Popayan but we enjoyed
Aguardiente
Pre match drink for Mrs P walking round the streets and up to momument hill where there are great views of the city at sunset.
We called into a local arty cafe and got chatting to the owner, a friendly Scottish chap called Colin who was one of the founders of Hostel Trail - the owners are his friends and he told us that he was responsible for the curry which we'd be enjoying on Wednesday Evening "Curry Night". We piled the pressure on Colin by telling him we were curry conocers and absoutely desperate to eat something tasty on this trip! Colin didn't disappoint us and we enjoyed a really spicy chicken and veg curry washed down with a bottle of local ale...life's good!
Mr P somehow managed to sneak in part 14 of the SA Futbol Tour and albeit a small local type stadium (well more like a field with a stand) it made for a really fun atmosphere and enjoyable afternoon - over to Mr P for the match facts.
SA Futbol Tour part 14 - Colombia Liga B Universitario Popayan 1 - A. Petrolera 0
Another Colombian Liga B game. This time between Popayan and A. Petrolero.
The stadium was by far the smallest we'd seen on this trip - think Atherton LR. The game was at 3.30pm on a Wednesday afternoon - strange time but it suited us. The atmosphere was really friendly and full of great banter between the crowd of around 500. This was more like a social gathering rather than a football crowd. Reminded me of the atmosphere at the Clydebank matches we've been to in Scotland - lots of abuse for the referee and opposing players with more than a pinch of comedy thrown in. ("otra lado" - veryfunny - you had to be there!)
Anyhoo, it was time to bid "Adios" to Colombia, vamos a Ecuador. Colombia had been much more fun than we had expected and the coffee was out of this world - we definitely hope we get to see Colombia again!!
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