certification

Thursday 30.6.2016

Cali is our last stop in Colombia and the last major city in the country before reaching Ecuador. Cali, Quito, and much of Peru all the way down to southern Chile are walled off from the continent by the mighty Andes Mountains, all resting on humid plains and experiencing a tropical heat unlike the rest of Colombia. After our week with Guillermo on the Kingdom, we hurriedly said our goodbyes to avert the tears one earns after sharing such an intimate and fulfilling aspect of their lives.  

I wish I could say that our arrival into Cali was pleasant. It wasn’t. Our bus ride from Neira to Cali was exceptionally long and the novelty of “second-world” public transportation was wearing off. We struggled on the many stops and hard turns to keep our stomachs docile, but had little success. We ended up getting off the bus (read: large, poorly maintained van stuffed with travelers hopping on and off at legitimately nonsensical stops) a stop early and camping in a small bar for an hour to catch our breath. We were in the outskirts of Palmira, itself an exurb of Cali.

Palmira is not welcoming. The tallest building was two floors and the second floor was missing a roof. The town had a smell reminiscent of aged industry, and antiquitous buildings sported grime like plaque on poor teeth. Taxi drivers literally sprinted to us, begging he first two white people stupid enough to get off at this stop for their money. It was an all-around unpleasant experience, and I wish that our last few days in Colombia hadn’t started off like this.

Cali is close to Palmira, and the ride to the city was filled with pleasant enough conversation with the taxi driver, who used the journey to explain why he loved Cali. Salsa was his answer. We realized going in to Cali that we knew literally nothing else about the city except for its reputation as a salsa capitol of the world, which is a reputation we would see in the many discotechas and dance lesson studios we passed entering the city.

After our AirBNB host argued with the taxi driver, who managed to charge us an obscene amount of money for the trip, we drooped inside Casa del Poeta and fell on our bed, exhausted. The day had consisted of an emotional farewell, a frenetic stomach-wrenching bus ride, and another opportunistic taxi driver. Sleep was welcoming.