Cali to Quito

We were excited to go out in Cali and teach the locals how the hip moving was really done as it it the Salsa City of South America. We stayed in a hostel which was apparently really close to all of the fun salsa bars. We also heard that there was another light festival at the river down the road so we were really excited. We got all done up and decided to head out to explore the city. We opened the door and found the streets lined with candles. On the eve of December 7, Dia de las Velitas (Immaculate Conception) is celebrated all over Colombia. It marks the start of the Christmas season and every house lights candles with images of the Virgen Mary and sits on the streets while listening to loud music!  It was really beautiful. The journey to the river ended up being a cab ride to the other side of the city as the location had changed. Upon listening to the strict orders of the cabbie to stay near police and not leave the festival and wander in the neighborhood we took off on our evening adventure. The lights were a tad different than we had anticipated, instead of Christmas lights, there were extinct animals of Colombia... odd but interesting non the less. We walked down the 2km stretch and watched light shows and carnies until we came to a barb wired fence.. the lights continued but we couldn´t see anymore police, the music was louder and the people a bit sketchier, we decided to turn around and make it back to the start to catch a cab to a club. On our walk we noticed some commotion at the intersection ahead of us. Suddenly there were swarms of people sprinting across the street, 40 police and military officials swinging clubs! We took that as our exit point as we were sure the tear gas was about to come out! and apparently without a map or an address cabbies in Cali don´t know any salsa clubs so we just went back to our hostel and watched Fight Club to prepare ourselves for future raids!

Although the decision was very difficult, we decided to get the hell out of Cali as soon as we woke up and found that nothing was open on the holiday and that we were in an unsafe neighborhood. We made our way to Popayan, a beautiful white washed colonial city. This town was a great break from the crazy hustle and bustle of the big scary cities! We went out at night to watch performers and see more REAL Christmas lights!

 The following day we made our way to Ipiales en route to the boarder crossing. This time we stayed in an even nicer neighborhood, right next to the hooker hotel. Unfortunately I don´t have any good stories about the hookers, although when I went to bed Dave said he had to go to the store to get some gel and it took him 3 hrs.... hmmm Either way it was a nice night. The following day we went to visit a church which was built where a Colombian had claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary on a cliff face. The following centuries 3 versions of churches were built and the final result was a beautiful structure on a bridge. We were blown away and even more so when we walked in and there disco flashing lights and tacky fake Christmas trees and the loud pounding pop catholic songs... Totally what we would have expected! 

Later that day we made a trip to the post office to send some Christmas pressies back home, only to discover that this was a full day event and that we would never do it again as postage is equivalent to a full months vacation here! Somehow we figured it out though and were able to catch a taxi to the boarder. We still don´t know how we got into Ecuador as the driver drove right through the boarder and dropped us off on the other side. When we got out of the car we were surrounded by black market money exchangers with handfuls of cash in their hands. There were also a bunch of drivers trying to bring us into town but we thought we should probably get some kind of stamp or acknowledgement that we were in a new country so we proceeded to walk a couple kms back to the Colombian customs. We got the paper work all sorted out easily enough and made our way to a bus station to get to Otavalo, a small city known all around Ecuador as the best Saturday market in the country. The journey passed by relatively quickly except David ALWAYS jumps on the bus first and gets the window seat, he then proceeds to fall asleep 10 seconds into our road trip and leaves me leaning over him to see the views! We arrived around 9pm and were starved! The decision was made to try out our first street market food, it was the best ever!!! There were about 9 kiosks set up with little ladies inside cooking up storms and inviting you in for a meal. I was soooo excited that I made David try out one meal at each place! I was in love! Ecuadorian food is amazing! Our favorite was these potato pancake type things and David liked the random street meat!  

The following day we were awoken by random animals yelping out our window, so we got up at about 6:30 and wondered over to the animal market. Our first view was of a massive pig being dragged across the hwy, I have NEVER heard such a horrible scream in my life! The following panoramic views of squealing cats, dogs, genie pigs, ducklings, pigs, cows and bulls was pretty amazing! David felt right at home walking through the droppings slapping the cows as he walked by.  

After we had our fill at the animal market we walked across the street to find that the whole city had turned into an artisan market. It was incredible! Wish that it was at the end of our trip because we both wanted to buy up the town! It was a pretty neat experience and we were able to also try out a bunch more random food! 

Later that day we decided to head to Quito. The bus ride there was much like all our previous rides, me bored, David sleeping... but we got there!  We grabbed a cab with an Aussie girl we had met earlier and drove to our hostel. We were really fortunate and were recommended to stay at a hostel in the old town called, ¨The Secret Garden¨ this has been our favorite place that we´ve stayed so far. The terrace on the 5th floor was unbelievable. It was a great view of the city and made up for Dave running all my country side touring! The rooms were also very clean and felt like home. We met tons of really fun people too and had some good nights on the town!!