Dancing our Way through Cali, Colombia

After relaxing in the smaller, slower paced towns of the coffee regions, we were back to the big city (Colombia's third largest) to see what Cali had to offer. When telling other travelers, and especially local Colombians, that we were headed there, the most common response is "Why would you want to go there?" For us, we had two big reasons. One, we had already been to many of the more prominent tourist locations in Colombia during this and previous trips (many of you probably know that Nicole actually lived in Colombia for 4 months a few years ago), and we want to see as many new things as possible. Two, Cali is the home of the Salsa, the most fun (and best workout) style of dance we know! Any of you who have ever been to a wedding with us know that Kyle is an enthusiastic, but not very skilled, dancer, while Nicole is as graceful as you'd expect a college athlete to be. Getting some lessons and joining the crowds at the salsa clubs was a wonderful opportunity to even us out a bit.

We had heard some rumblings about Cali not being very safe. There is a stereotype that Colombia is a dangerous country in general, mainly from legacy mindsets about cartels and shows like Narcos and similar. However, we have found that to absolutely NOT be the case. But still, Cali has a higher-than-normal crime rate for a major city, with some areas that police don't have a presence in and a pretty distinct division between the wealthy class and the people in poverty. But, after our preparation in Rio and our experience in other large Latin America cities (really all big cities in general), we knew how to stay safe while still enjoying the city. Colombians have a saying, "No dar papaya," which basically means don't show the goods. As long as you aren't dressing flashy and constantly pulling out your phone, camera, and/or cash then you won't really advertise yourself for those crimes of opportunity. We would recommend this advice to anyone travelling anywhere (okay, you're probably fine in Iceland and Switzerland, but those are the exceptions!)

Back to Cali: because of our late bus out of Salento, we arrived after dark. We took an Uber to our hostel from there. Our hostel was in the San Fernando/Miraflores area, and just a couple of blocks away from the "Parque del Perro," a park known for a small statue of a non-descript dog in it's center. While the park isn't that exciting, it is completely surrounded by restaurants. Every square inch of building space around the park and the surrounding streets is occupied by a restaurant, café, bread shop, or bar. We're talking dozens of places to eat in a two block radius (some buildings even had restaurants stacked three levels high). While the options were great, it was overwhelming and on our first night there we just ended up stopping at like the 15th artisanal burger place we passed by. We ended up having our best burgers of the trip (honestly, with how good burgers/beef are back in Nebraska, we tend to avoid getting them elsewhere as they often disappoint). We walked back after dinner and, even in the dark, started to become more comfortable with the neighborhood we were staying in (though our technique in less reputable cities is to only take a small amount of cash and just one of our phones with us when we leave the hostel).

Our hostel had free breakfast (the ingredients were free....but you cooked them yourself) and a cool rooftop area with some dumbbells and yoga mats lying around, so we were able to get good workouts in every morning. After working out on our second day in Cali, we headed to the Galeria de Alalmeda, a giant covered market. We explored the "souvenir" area (bizarre religious dolls and trinkets, not much for tourists) and sat down at a plastic table and chairs for some tamales with pork and chicken in them (thanks to the 9 year old boy working as a busser who upsold us on adding rice, arepas, and juice to our dish!). After that, we shopped in the fruit area for cutting up fruit salads later (this market has more types of fruit than we have ever seen in one location).

After dropping our stuff back off at the hostel, we headed up to the famous San Antonio district and walked the Ruta de Cafes to try some more coffee (Nicole ordered a coffee lemonade, which was a bizarre combination but actually turned out quite good). The streets in the district were closed off, and there were various workshops taking place. Kyle joined in on a biking one, where he rode an obstacle course and did a puzzle (in Spanish) about prioritizing modes of transport (i.e. pedestrians are the most important, followed by bikers, public transport, etc). Shortly afterwards he realized that it was an event for kids (maybe the goodie bag with a notebook, and the free bracelet gave it away? Or maybe it was the 10 children's' bikes mixed in with the two larger bikes? Either way, Kyle definitely looked pretty sheepish as we walked away!). We walked the rest of the district (Kyle painstakingly avoided the children's painting classes and hopscotch) before heading back to the hostel. The 30 minute walk each way was pretty safe, but a local Colombian woman did, at one point, tell Nicole not to have her camera out. We were dar'ing a little too much papaya I guess!

That evening we participated in the free salsa dance lessons at the hostel. The lesson was fast paced, intense, and a ton of fun. We were pouring buckets of sweat afterwards (note that Cali is often called the City of Eternal summer because of the sweltering year-round heat). But, with our newfound moves, we decided to have a quick dinner, a quick shower, and to head to La Topa Talondra, a cool local salsa club (that is also very accommodating to tourists). When we arrived the music was blaring (we could barely hear each other, even in the outside vestibule) and EVERYONE was dancing. The club has a big open floor plan with all of the tables and chairs pushed against the walls, and a couple of upper level balconies with a similar set up. We grabbed a spot on one of the balconies, watched other dancers for awhile, and finally drummed up the courage to go out ourselves (the shots of aguardiente, the local liquor of choice, definitely helped). It took a bit to get into the groove (pun kind of intended), but after we decided to let loose a bit we had so much fun. At one point a local with a bottle of rum, that he appeared to have had way too much of, joined our table. He mumbled a lot of what we were pretty sure was Spanish, and mostly made hand gestures to communicate. He was a nice dude though, and even took Nicole for a spin on the dance floor. After staying way too late, we said our goodbyes and hopped in a cab home.

The next day was Sunday, and that meant it was Cyclovia day! Cyclovia happens every Sunday in Cali, and it is a big event where various roads in the city are shut down for cyclists, roller skaters, joggers, and even families to take a casual stroll. There are also pop up spin classes, dance workouts, roomba classes, and tons of street vendors. Almost 200,000 people participate every week! We joined in for a 3 mile run and tried to keep up in the dance workouts. Afterwards, we sat down at one of the vendor stands for a Maracuya (Nicole's favorite) milkshake, and a cholado, which is specialty of the area that consists of about 9 different fruits grinded up with shaved ice, and topped by caramel and chocolate syrup and vanilla wafers. It's basically a sugar rush disguised (not very well) as your daily serving of healthy stuff. We went back to the hostel to lay around (outside of Cyclovia, Sundays in Cali are very much a time of relaxation). Later in the evening, a barber showed up at the hostel to give Kyle a haircut (the barber is on call at this place for $5 haircuts). The barber had arrived early and cut a line in the eyebrow of each of the hostel workers, so Kyle decided to get it too! Not his best style choice, but we can live with it since we won't be back home any time soon....also, he trimmed Kyle's beard down to stubble, without asking. He simply did it, then said "Is it okay that I trimmed your beard?"

On Monday we had to check out, but didn't have a flight until midnight. We spent the day getting ready to transition continents, including taking our Covid tests for travel, booking accommodations, doing pre-flight travel forms, and buying snacks for the journey (we definitely wanted to avoid paying airport prices for food). Nicole also got a manicure/pedicure done for a fraction of the cost back home, and we snacked on some papas rellenas (stuffed, fried potato balls). After our errands were buttoned up, we booked a private couples salsa class at the hostel (a great way to show off Kyle's two left feet) and even took place in the evening group dance class afterwards. After all, that's what we were here for! Thanks again to Oasis Hostel for still letting us shower 10 hours after checkout so we could be fresh ahead of our 40 hour journey overseas. We had a great time in Cali, and felt completely safe, but I think our hips and legs need some more rest before their next dancing session!

Levi's shirt count: surprisingly we only went up to 375. We expect Istanbul to push us back over the top.