Monday, July 4, 2011

Day 27 - Cali (Aye-yi-yii!)


Soo today turned out to be adventure day number #2. An English girl I met yesterday spoke of this cute little place called the Hacienda El Paraíso (Quick history). This pretty much is the story of Maria, a Colombian Romeo & Juliet of sorts. 

Now the kicker is when I started this trek, I thought it was just an hour or some from the hostel. Ohh I saw, I was super wrong. Theo, who I adore, is such a free spirit and time is just freeee, but anyone who knows me, knows I'll wing it to a degree, but I am out of the country and traveling outside of the place I am visiting, negative! <= yes this is a run on and many thought sentence. We ended up leaving like late 11ish and get onto the bus. INSTEAD of it just being this bus, I learn we have to go to the terminal, which took 45 minutes, trek through the terminal to find the bus to take us and then ride, which felt like 5 hours to the place, but it took about 2 hours and that's just to the street. Then had to get a cab to the place. It was a beautiful drive and we arrive at the house. It was a beautifully constructed house that had been well restored and maintained. 

 


 

Don't ask, lol. 


 

However, my highlight were these tasty treats we had. It had chicken and something. Then I added this picante sauce. Muy delicisio! 
My overall review, I was not as thrilled about it considering how long it took us to get there plus how much it cost. So if someone asked me, I would not be in a hurry to tell them to visit unless they stayed a few days in the valley. After the adventure back from Paraíso, the plan is still the same, to find some reggaeton and experience some additional Cali nightlife. In the interim, I just need to do nothing. 

Soo the hostel rallies again and we are determined to find a place. Well the morning repeats itself, we walk and walk and no one really knows where they are going. It's not AS bad as earlier cause walking is free, but we are all getting ancy. I did get to have some great conversations with several backpackers and that made it all worthwhile. The Ave 6, a well known strip of bars/clubs/etc was very nice.
We ended up at a local spot which was kinda cute, but not enough oomph. It was nice to see what the locals see. I even saw a lady pimp/hustler.
 

My all time favorite from this place, was the makeshift bar. You told the bartender what you wanted, he walked to this lady and placed the order. She mixed it up behind this wall of sorts. Can you say sketch?



Mighty interesting I say. So half the group was content and half wanted to move around. Soo you know I'm a busy body and wanted to move around. I broke off with the group with a couple of trekkers. WELLLL the night ended with trips to LuLu 1 and LuLu 2. Sidebar: Cali lends itself to something unusual. City limits closes at 3am and you travel a bit and the clubs end at 6am-ish. We did both, some open bar, good music, and straight characters, I had an absolute blast, but boy was I tired. I'll let the pics speak for themselves.

 

These guys were such a blast! He could dance Merengue around anyone in the nightclub.
 

Still going strong at 5am!
A few minutes later...



Day 2 of go hard or go home a - I would say was a success. 

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