Cali(fornia) dreamin

My last night in Cartagena was a blast.

During my stay at the hostel I met a group of third-year university students, from Bogota, who are currently in the middle of a two week summer program in Cartagena. We all hit it off really well.

The students explained to me that in Colombia, not unlike in America, they´re always looking for the smallest reason to party. So, since a few of us were leaving the hostel the following day, we had a party.

And party, we did. I went to sleep at four in the morning, and I had to wake up at five to get a move on to my next location, Cali.

Remember Henry? The waiter from New Jersey I had mentioned in one of my first posts?

Well, he´s in Colombia visiting family until July 18th, and I chose Cali as my next location because that´s where him and his family are staying.

My original plan was to take a bus from Cartagena to Cali, and let´s just say that bus journeys in Colombia can be epic (and quite pricey.) It´s a twenty hour trip, and the cost is just over $80 USD.

I remembered, however, that one of the travelers I had met in Costa Rica had mentioned something about cheap airfare within Colombia. After a bit of research, I was able to find a flight from Cartagena to Cali--with a three hour layover in Bogota--for just about $77 USD (total travel time: 6 hours.)

A no brainer.

So, after taking a morning flight from Cartagena, I arrived at the airport in Cali yesterday afternoon, where Henry and his brother Armando were waiting to scoop me up.

The hospitality I´ve received from Armando and his wife, Lady, over the past twelve hours has been tremendous. They´ve kept me extremely well fed, and they´ve bent over backwards to make sure that I´m comfortable in their home.

I think I´ll stay here in Cali for another night or two before moving on.

Henry´s sister lives on a farm in the coffee region, and she will be visiting Cali with her husband for dinner tomorrow night. From Cali, I think I´ll be heading up to the coffee region with them when they return. And from there, I´ll head on to the city of Medellin, where Henry told me that he´ll put me in contact with his nephew.

So, it looks like I have a decent few weeks ahead of me here in Colombia. I´m excited to explore the coffee region and some of the smaller towns here in the central region of the country, and I´m looking forward to capping my trip off with a weekend of partying in Bogota with the students I met up in Cartagena.