Cali, salsa capital del mundo

There is really only one reason to come to Cali and that is to party. And the biggest party of the year is the Feria de Cali, a 6 day non-stop, aguardiente drenched, free-for-all that runs from 25 to 30 December.

We had already been in Cali for two weeks before the festival begun, ostensibly to squeeze in a few salsa classes so we didn't humiliate ourselves too badly on the dance floor. Sadly a few hours of private classes are not enough to counter genetics and a general lack of coordination. Still, it's fun to try (though a few glasses of dutch courage are generally required).

The opening event of the festival is the salsadromo, a six hour parade of salsa dancers, floats and musicians. Two million people line the route, with about one million vendors ensuring that a cold beer is never far from your hand.

About thirty of us from the hostel piled into five taxis to head down to the festival site- Martijn and I ended up in different taxis and (unsurprisingly) didn’t see each other again for the rest of the day. It was harder than you’d think to spot a 6-foot blond gringo amongst a crowd of 5-foot dark Colombians.

I spent the day with Courtney, a girl from the USA who is even shorter than I am. By the time we arrived the best viewing positions were long gone, so we resorted to buying a plastic stool and taking turns standing on it to see over the crowd.

Almost as much fun as watching the parade was watching the crowd. Vendors selling huge aerosol cans of foam are almost as popular as beer vendors and it wasn’t long before the while scene resembled an enormous foam party. 

 

Like pretty much every festival, the general level of drunken silliness increased as the afternoon wore on, peaking when half the caleño police force were called in to disperse some overzealous party-goers. It's just not a party without a good old fashioned riot!!



Rum recount

Ok, so it seems I can't count. There are two part seven's to the rum diaries.

This means that 100% Puro Colombia has the honour of being our 20th bottle of experimental rum...and it also means that I'm an idiot.

The Rum Diaries Part XIX

We went to the supermarket to buy food. We came back with rum. In our defence they were offering free shots and a free half bottle with every bottle purchase. It seemed silly not to be persuaded by cheap marketing ploys.



100% Puro Colombiano 6 Años is the best Colombian rum we've had so far, a fact which two empty bottles and a hangover can attest to. Don't worry...we didn't drink it all ourselves. Christmas is all about sharing : )

The Rum Diaries Part XVIII

There has been a bit of a hiatus in rum consumption since arriving in Colombia because
a) Rum is expensive
b) Despite having more sugarcane than you can poke a stick at, Colombians don't seem to make very good rum (kind of like Australians come to think of it!!)

Colombians prefer aguardiente, which is kind of like sambuca but only twenty-something percent. They drink it by the bucketload and pour it down your throat at every opportunity. We have been accosted numerous times by groups of drunken people and forced to do shots.

Anyway, back to the rum. Ron Marques del Valle is a big improvement over aguardiente but wouldn't cut it in Martijn's top ten. Extra points deducted for the unforgivably high price of around $16.

Aguardiente y cafe- kicking back in Salento

We’ve spent the last four or five days hanging out in Salento, a picturesque village in the south of the coffee region, with absurdly pretty painted shop-fronts and the kind of surrounding scenery that we are starting to get used to…coffee & banana plantations, brightly coloured tropical flowers and an abundance of greenery in general.

 

 Salento is famous for its proximity to the spectacular Valle del Cocora, where Colombia’s national tree, the Cocora Palm, towers against a backdrop of thick, humid cloud forest. Friday morning we made our way to the plaza where we ran into Eddie, a German guy we’d hiked the Colca Canyon with back in Arequipa, and the three of us jumped into a jeep to head off to Cocora. The five hour hike takes you on a circuit through open pasture, dense cloud forest, over rivers & streams and ends up in the actual Valle de Cocora.

 

 

Along the way we stopped at a little finca for traditional hot chocolate & cheese (yep…together at last) and to admire the hundreds of hummingbirds that flit around the various feeders and flowers.

Being German, Eddie opted for a BYO lunch of frankfurters and beer (I think it’s fair to say he loves beer just as much, if not more than, we do).

Friday night in town we wandered around checking out festivities for the Noche de Velitas (Night of Candles), whose significance I’m still not exactly sure of, but which seems to have something to do with the Virgin Mary (doesn’t everything!).

Saturday night we decided to pick up the pace a little and started with some afternoon beers in the plaza with Quinten, an aussie guy studying in Bogota, followed by beers back at the hostel, followed by more beer (and a few half bottles of aguardiente) back in the plaza, where we befriended some random locals and finished up around sunrise. Needless to say, Sunday was a bit of a write-off.

 

This morning we wandered down to the finca owned by the hostel- Finca de Don Eduardo- where we had a tour of the property and got a lesson in the art of coffee production.  

 

Colombia is the fourth biggest exporter of coffee in the world but that desn't mean finding a decent cup is easy...we fell in love with this guy at a cafe in Salento. He's using a machine made in 1905 and served us our best coffee (by far) in South America to date!!!

We heart Colombia

Even though we’ve only been in the country for two weeks, Colombia is already looking like becoming the South American favourite. The countryside is ridiculously beautiful. The first towns we stopped in- Popayan & San Agustin- are surrounded by intensely green, lush hills and covered in coffee, banana, pineapple, papaya, citrus and cornfields. And it’s so clean!!! After the depressing amount of rubbish heaped by the side of the road and at the exit of every town in Bolivia and Peru, Colombia seems pristine.

In Popayan we hired bikes with Tom and Jason (from Lennox Street Richmond…small world) and got a ride out to Coconuco, some thermal baths about 30km from the city. The baths were slightly average, made worse by the presence of a creepy local who befriended us, but cycling through the country was beautiful.

 

 In San Agustin we upgraded to a dirt bike and coasted around the incredibly dicey narrow tracks, purpose built for donkeys rather than vehicles. The town is famous for the archaeological sites nearby but the scenery is far more impressive.

 

 Purple, pink and red bougainvillea, bright pink, enormous hibiscus and velvety soft flouro orange flowers break up the patchwork green vistas. Humming birds and butterflies complete the bucolic picture.

 

 A few people had told us the food in Colombia was crap, but maybe they hadn’t travelled Bolivia for three months. In addition to the standard chicken/beef and rice combo, we now have (gasp) salad!!! And beans!! Colombia must also have the widest range of fruit on earth- in addition to pineapple, mango, strawberries, papaya and the other usual suspects, there is also pithaya (a bit like dragon fruit); the famous lulo, which makes a seriously kickass juice; borojo (amazing in a smoothie with milk); tomate del arbol (tamarillo- also makes a surprisingly yummy juice) and more that we still have to try.

 And the people are so friendly!! In Popayan we were accosted as we walked to the supermarket and forced to drink several shots of aguardiente with some locals. I asked a woman for directions on the street and she walked us halfway over the city to show us where to go. Much as I admire the aloof, stoic highlanders of Bolivia and Peru, it’s nice to be in a country where the people actually want to chat with you.

Goodbye G12

Today I got the sad news that my beloved Canon Powershot G12 is well and truly dead. It got sick last week and has been awaiting diagnosis in a Canon service centre in Quito. Today they told me it would cost $420 to fix. A new camera shipped from the USA will cost me $379. Go figure.

My travel insurance told me that since it was a mechanical breakdown, they wouldn't cover it. Fuckers.

This is me now:

 Urban Dictionary defines 'sad face' as follows:

2. A sad face is an expression used in electronic communication such as texting and emails to convey an emotion without using an emoticon. Nevertheless, caution should be used when interpreting this term due to wide range of emotions that may be attached to it. It could mean "sad face" as in "I pouted for half a second" or it could mean "sad face" as in "I'm broken hearted beyond belief." 

In my case it definately means 'I am broken hearted beyond belief'...it definately DOESN' T mean 

3. A sudden and extreme need or desire to defecate. Sensations of despair and hopelessness prevail over all other emotions, dampening out any joy or laughter that may be surrounding the person afflicted, thus resulting in a sad face. Relieved only by the timely use of the latrine. Typically occurs after nicotine is introduced into the body.

WTF?????????

Anyway. Goodbye G12, I will miss you.

The Rum Diaries Part XVII

Our final nod to Ecuadorian rum producers- a bottle of Ron Castillo Añejo- before we cross the border into the far more exciting world of Ron de Colombia!!

Castillo invoked a bit of a 'meh' response in both of us. Luckily, it came with a free glass, which boosted it a few extra points. Plus it was $8, so you can't really complain can you!!

Fun & Games at Latitude 0

We went to check out Mitad del Mundo today- the monument and theme-park styled city celebrating Latitude 0. For a line on the ground, it was a surprising amount of fun!!!

The impressive monument that pops up in 99% of tourist pics is actually about 250m off the true equator...oops.

The rival Inti Nan museum next door proudly claims the honour of being at Latitude 0 and has a bunch of fun games that prove it.

Our favourite was balancing a raw egg on a nail- almost impossible to do anywhere other than bang on the equator.

 

After achieving egg-equilibrium we were awarded the title of egg-master and received a certificate!! Woohoo!!

Almost as impressive was the experiment that proves that it pays to trust The Simpsons in all matters scientific. We watched as the guide filled a tub of water over the equator and it drained straight out- next he moved the tub to the south and the water drained out clockwise and finally he repeated the test to the north and we had anti-clockwise drainage!! The Coriolis Effect in practice!!

It was like being in an segment of "Why Is It So?" What do you know...learning can be fun!!

Making it happen in Baños

We did it! We broke the cycle of laziness in Ecuador! I have to say, Baños was the perfect place to make amends. It's marketed as the adventure capital of Ecuador and there is heaps of sporty, fun stuff to do.

We managed to complete the Baños trifecta of hike, bike, bathe. We hiked to Runtun & to the two Miradors perched high above the town, we biked along the Ruta de las Cascadas and we bathed in the thermal pools that give Baños it's name. Ok, so bathing is not exactly sporty...but those medicinal waters are healthy so we're counting it.

The biking wasn't exacty strenuous either- pretty much the entire 50km route is downhill- but it was heaps of fun and we did get a bit of exercise clambouring up and down the valley to check out the various waterfalls. The most famous is Pailon del Diablo, but our favourite was Machay, where you could swim at the base of the falls.

Taking the tarabita (cable car) across to see Manto de la Novia & San Pedro falls was fun, if slightly terrifying. Rather than a sedate descent the cable car plummets a few hundred metres before screeching to a halt just as you think you're going to be scrambled against the other side.  

 



It's probably no coicidence that all this activity was accompanied by multiple AFD's. Baños is going to go down as our healthiest South American city!

The Rum Diaries Part XVI

2300 Altura de los Andes Ron is the second Ecuadorian rum we've tried so far and by far the best!! So what's so special about the high altitude ageing process?? This is what Guatemalan producer Ron Zacapa has to say about their rum (which, coincidentally is aged at exactly the same altitude!)

At sea level, the air is warmer and the air pressure is lower, which accelerates the ageing process. The opposite is true when ageing at high altitude. The climate is cooler and the air is thinner, which allows a slow aging process. With a constant average temperature of 14°C (58°F). The altitude also lends a certain pressure to the atmosphere that intensifies the blends.

Hmmm, interesting. And tasty.

Ecuador; land of inactivity

That is probably a little unfair to Ecuador since it's really us who have been shamefully inactive...but when I look back at our time in South America I think Ecuador will stand out for being the place where we achieved fuck all. Not counting some seriously successful rum diaries of course.

After Cuenca we headed to the coast for some sun & surf, only to be somewhat disapointed by a complete lack of sun and rather average surf. We still managed to hang out in Puerto Lopez for almost a week, eating seafood & experimenting with juice combos (watermelon & pineapple rocks). We did manage to head out to the 'poor man's Galapagos', Isla de la Plata, and see some boobies (of the bird, not hooter variety):

Blue-footed Booby

Nazca Booby



After Puerto Lopez we took the bus further up north to Canoa, which must be one of the easiest places in the world to do nothing. Beautiful beach, very laid back vibe and copious numbers of palm-frond thatched bars in which to while away the sunset hours (and beyond). We also found a like minded group of travellers with which to indulge, so many a dollar was spent on beer & caipirinha and many a morning was slept away. We tried to do sea-kayaking to visit a nearby cave...really we did!!! But the weather was against us and the kayaking never happened.

Our next stop is Baños where we are going to attempt to break the cycle and have something other than beachside cocktails  & arroz con mariscos to remember Ecuador by.

The Rum Diaries Part XV

For this entry, I think a bit of calypso is required so if you wouldn't mind just clicking on the link below....

Ready Mr. Music

I love Harry, he makes me want to limbo.

Anyway, Ron 100 Fuegos is a very tasty little rum from the party capital of the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago. We probably bought this bottle a little late in the evening for a critical review- but I do have to say it went down a treat as we classily swigged from the bottle on the dancefloor at the free electronic music festival. Despite being sponsored by Miller (ick) organisers had no problem with people bringing their own booze (guess they've tasted Miller) so there were many bottles of rum, vodka and god knows what else being passed around.

The Rum Diaries Part XIV

New country, new selection of rums to try!! First up was San Miguel Black, 7 Años, made right here in Cuenca. In fact, the distillery is just outside the city and houses a staggering 200 million litres of rum!!

For a reserva aged rum it was a bit rough to be honest. Martijn didn't rate it...as evidenced by his willingness to forgo a visit to the distillery.

From Chachapoyas to Cuenca- via taxi, tuk tuk, combi, tuk tuk, minivan, tuk tuk, taxi, ranchero, taxi and bus.

Yep that’s how many vehicle changes it took to get from Chachapoyas to Cuenca. First up was a terrifyingly fast taxi ride from Chachapoyas to Bagua Grande, through scenery that would have been beautiful had it not been whizzing past at the speed of light. In Bagua we tuk-tukked (I think I just created a new verb!) to the other end of town to get a combi to Jaen; it was the fastest combi fill-up in history and we were on our way again in five minutes, driving through verdant green rice paddys and banana plantations.

 

 In Jaen we piled out of the combi and into another tuk-tuk, crossing town for the “terminal” to San Ignacio. Another speedy changeover and we were on our way. We arrived in San Ignacio about 2pm and although we’d been told we couldn’t make it over the border in one day, we decided to give it a shot. Yet another tuk tuk took us to the northern terminal and after an hour or so we had four people to share a taxi to La Balsa. Roadworks meant that the 2 hour drive took almost four- we were sweating it a little by 6pm, since the last ranchero departed the Ecuadorian side of the border at 7pm, but our luck held out.

In La Balsa the power had gone out, so the immigration officer borrowed our torch to inspect our passports. We walked across the border and made it with just enough time to change our soles into dollares and buy our first Ecuadorian beer, before the ranchero (a fancy name for a truck with wooden benches on the tray) rocked up to take us to Zumba (Zoe Morris, I thought of you).

The next morning we were back at the bus terminal ay 8am, only to find out that the bus to Loja had left at 7am. We settled in to wait for the 10am bus, only to be told that there was a Agencia Nacional de Transito taxi that would take us for just a few dollars more than the bus!! This turned out to be a blessing since the road was worse than shit, and the government taxi agency is equipped with brand spanking new yellow four wheel drives!

On arrival in Loja we jumped out of the car in the pissing rain and jumped on a city bus to take us to the terminal. We arrived just after 2pm and lo and behold, there was a 2:30pm bus to take us the last four hours to Cuenca.

Phew. Ten vehicles, two days, 650km. Time to chill in Cuenca J