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.