Greetings from Cali Colombia

In the last postcard from Panama I chronicled the connecting flight debacle up to landing in Bogota. The hotel is a part of a large modern shopping mall. The hallways connecting the hotel with the mall feature amazing replicas of pre-Colombian pottery art. The respite over night at the comfortable Hotel Intercontinental made the future look brighter and the next morning at the airport I caught a flight to Cali.

Upon arrival in Cali, as I had already passed customs in Bogota, I walked directly through the arrival lounge and out to the transportation area where public city buses waited nearby for passengers. Inquiries about changing money  produced another surprise: Colombia, like Panama also uses US currency. A Sacagawea dollar coin similar to the rarely used Susan B Anthony coin back home is widely used and carries all the usual marking of our coins including the mint codes. Information I found on the Internet claims it is legal tender in the US.

Reaching Cali's central bus terminal I boarded a new bus and made it to an area near the center of the city. The Torres de Cali sky scraper contains a hotel and after my initial two hour walking hotel search seemed to be the best bet for a first nighter. The receptionist quoted a rate of about $60 including tax and breakfast and I checked in. Ten minutes after getting into the room the receptionist called to say her boss wanted to add tax onto the rate quoted and asked me if that would be O.K. I answered with an emphatic "no" and she told me to wait while she conferred with her boss. On hold for five minutes and disgusted, I hustled down to the lobby to cancel my booking and left in a huff. The Hotel Valle Real I'd seen earlier at $60 is only a block away and that became my first home in Cali. With Colombia producing some of the best coffee in the world, I couldn't believe what poor coffee the Hotel Valle Real served for breakfast.  

Now more familiar with the city layout I continued my lodging survey and found the Hotel Dann Carlton Cali, a magnificent five star establishment... and at $60 an excellent value. The Dann Carlton Cali, has great coffee... and free in the lobby whenever a guest wants some. Breakfasts at the Dann Carlton made dieting impossible. Watching the chef I discovered eggs cook better when covered with a dome during frying and honey over papaya is delicious. All hotels in Colombia seem to tack on a daily insurance fee of a couple dollars. At one point I cut my hand on a broken glass and could not stop the bleeding. The hotel noted my insurance covered such problems and called the paramedics to look at my gushing blood. Fortunately, the injury turned out to be minor. 

One of my walks  around Cali took me into the old "Dangerous, be careful!" part of the city around the central plaza. I've  previously talked about the joys of encountering unusual smells in my travels. Cali is special in this regard. Everywhere I turned a new odor enveloped me; some recognizable, others foreign, none really unpleasant. Cali has a replica of the famous Rio De Janeiro landmark Cristo Redentor. The colossal hilltop statue is visible from my hotel. On another nearby hilltop stands the Three Crosses monument. Colombianos take their public religion seriously. At opposite extremes of the city limits are the two main shopping malls:  Chipichapa (fun to pronounce, isn't it) to the north and the much larger Uni Plaza to the south. I visited both several times for the extensive food courts, shopping for socks and a badly needed haircut.

Motorcyclists wear bright visibility vests with their license numbers on the back. I wondered why the Military Police bothered to wear camouflage suits when they were going to  cover them up with visibility vests. Sniffer dogs are in wide use throughout Columbia. I watched as a team checked out the area around the Dann Carlton Hotel Cali. I wonder at the possibility of training more/all dogs in America to be sniffer dogs under a Homeland security provision. I hear a lot of the music I enjoyed during the 60's; folk music, the Beatles, etc. Occasionally I must put up with a South American version of Rap in Spanish, weird and thoroughly irritating. In Cali there are many independent bus companies. Each one has a Route #1 which follows its own unique route. That makes it very confusing for a visitor to the city. Frequently buses are boarded by beggars or vendors or entertainers who collect donations after their presentations.   

Inquiring about dangers on the road south as I prepared to leave Cali, everyone advised me to avoid buses and use one of the frequent collective taxis. The cost difference amounted to less than ten dollars, so I grabbed an eight passenger van for Popayan about three hours to the south.  

 

Peace,
Fred L Bellomy

 

PS: US State Department warnings for Colombia: "During the past two years, incidence of kidnapping and other violent crime has decreased markedly in most urban centers, including Bogota, Medellin, Barranquilla, and Cartagena.  Nevertheless, Colombia continues to have a high rate of kidnapping for ransom, with 185 kidnappings reported in the first four months of 2005. American kidnap or murder victims have included journalists, missionaries, scientists, human rights workers and businesspeople, as well as persons on tourism or family visits, and even small children.  No one can be considered immune." Hmm... that's more than one a day!  

PPS: I finished reading The Awakening by Kate Chopin, a story published twenty years before women were granted the right to vote in the U.S. It is about a wife who refused to suppress her "improper" feelings in an age when women were chattel. It is a charming tale with subtle hints of awakening sexuality, something absolutely taboo in that era, and therefore condemned by polite society of the age. That women's rights have come so far is in part due to the pioneering efforts of this author: 

"Kate Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents were from Irish and Creole backgrounds. When Chopin was widowed at 32, she began writing to support herself and her six children. She was widely accepted as a writer of local color fiction, and was generally successful until the publication of her scandalous novel The Awakening, in 1899. Perched between the social conservatism of the nineteenth century and dealing with tabooed themes too soon for the growingly open twentieth, the novel's sexually aware and shocking protagonist, Edna Pontillier, pushed Chopin into literary oblivion. Chopin, and her memorable characters and stories, finally emerged from society's morally imposed ostracization during the resurgence of women's rights in the early 1970's." 

 

Cali Colombia: Colorful peppers on display in the old city open market area.

Cali Columbia: A fountain in one of the plaza parks.

Cali Columbia: Interesting sculpture of children at water play in a pond along the river, Rio Cali.

Cali Columbia: Looking down one of the several lanes in the extensive UniCentro shopping mall.

Cali Colombia: Street vendors abound all over the old central city section.

Cali Colombia: Monument in one of the park areas along the River Cali.

Cali Colombia: The doctor is in. Several guys like this one were selling natural remedies in one of the plaza parks.

Cali Colombia: Oops! Who lowered that overpass? I'll be someone is looking for a new job!

Cali Colombia: View from the window of my room in the Dann Carlton Hotel.

Cali Colombia: View from the window of my room in the Dann Carlton Hotel.

Cali Colombia: Floral decoration in the lobby of the Dann Carlton Hotel.

Cali Colombia: Art gracing the lobby of the Dann Carlton Hotel.

Cali Colombia: Sunset view from the window of my room in the Dann Carlton Hotel.

Cali Colombia: Chickens really do need an international political action committee. Why not urge restaurants to use images of foxes to sell chicken as food?

Cali Columbia: Yep. They have stupid chickens in Colombia, too.

Cali Columbia: Chipichapa, a large open air shopping complex to the north of the city center. This car wash is across from the mall and had the best sign showing the name of the mall in the area.

Cali Columbia: Chipichapa, a large open air shopping complex to the north of the city center. Had a great charbroiled steak here.

Cali Columbia: Inside the Agustino Church.