Cali Mark 2

In a nutshell, we another a fantastic weekend in Cali. We were very lucky to spend most of the weekend with three chicas Jez had met at Halloween dressed as angels and who had proved themselves excellent city guides from the weekend before (did I mention that that night we ended up in at 6am in a very strange gay club surrounded by witches and a guys on stilts with huge horns - slightly disturbing). They are Anna, Nana, and Nata (all apologies if names are spelt incorrectly).

They drove us around, showed us the nice neighbourhood they lived in (Anna's dad is another lawyer like I may actually become one day) and at night showed us fantastic places to go out. What was perhaps nicest was that there was no pretence from these girls, they did not want anything out of us but were just great fun.

SATURDAY - RAVE IN FIELD. Yup that is where I spent my Saturday night. As many of you will know, hard-core electronica all night raves in a field are not exactly my thing, but I had a great time. In fact I've been enjoying a bit too much electronica for my liking recently - not healthy. Nothing more complicated then a pretty good DJ and a lot of cool people dancing in a field until way after light. Genius, but somehow expensive - 5000 pesos for a water and I was on the red bull. Another example of how friendly the people are here is that the only alcohol drunk was provided free of charge in swigs by Anna's cousin and his mates. Above should be a photo of the night. Almost as good as the night was the Pan Queso at 7am on the way home.

SUNDAY - SALSA. This was one of the funnest nights I have had. In a sentence, only loco locals, solo spirits, muchos salsa, fantastico live band, people going crazy dancing on tables, compact smoky atmosphere and life in the air everywhere. Even free aquadiente (dodgy dodgy local spirit) for those who danced craziest (definitely not best) and we did our part in winning the second bottle. Also a bit of a salsa lesson from one of the chicas who is a teacher just to polish the night off - 'bienvenido en Colombia' will forever resonate in my head.

We even had time to catch Cali v Perreira (3-0 but not the best quality footie) and see a bit of the downtown of the city. We made it out of Calle 6. The match did have a rather dodgy feel about it, not helped by a young local lad collapsing and convulsing in front of us while queing for tickets, but I think he ended up being OK. We also climbed the three cross topped hill (mountain for blighty) overlooking the city and sat back agawp at the spectacular view. As night fell, thousands of lights lit up the city below.

Overall I was very sad to leave Cali as it is a city with beautiful friendly people and just a general nice feel about it (or at least the areas we went to). It is people that make a city and I have to thank the three chicas for everything they did. Hopefully we might catch them at some future point in time. Oh, I forgot to say that this weekend (in general when I say weekends in Colombia I mean about 5 days) we also met Sebastian - loco alemagne, and it is with him and saying goodbye to Jez that Dave and I headed north to the coffee region!!