After spending two hours in the three petrol stations that hitchwiki mentions I asked if there was another one further down the road. Yes there was one. 20 minutes walk or 500 meters away. It was neither 20 min or 500m. Lesson: NEVER, trust a Colombian when you ask about distances. The distance will never be the one they are telling you, or multiply that distance by 3 or 4. Anyway, we walked a lot more than what we were told and after eating, resting, turning down 20 thousand pesos and asking around we found a direct ride to Cali... at around 16:00.
We wanted to go to Pereira but we were in Armenia at around 1 in the morning. After trying to sleep in the trailer for three hours, the guy probably forgot that we were in the back and started the truck and we started moving. We mobed to the front shortly after. We made it to Cali by 8 in the morning the next day. I called Adrián (the guy Lisa put me in contact with) and an hour later we were in his house. I was asking hot to get there when a random guy heard me asking and he took us a few streets from Adrián's house.
Cali is a nice city in the valley of the Cauca river. Is still very big but not as big as Bogotá. You can walk maybe almost everywhere but we always took the bus back when we were going back after sunset. Some areas didn't seem nice to walk after dark. There's a hill call San Antonio where you could enjoy an awesome view of the city. There are so many trees but still you can appreciate the view. There was a concert of andean music and the park was full of people from almost every walk of life. Along the river Cali there is a small walking path with several cat sculptures. One big one that started the trend and several small ones made by different artists reflecting different styles.
One of the main streets is Calle 5, it runs from North to South. There is a small hill on the side of it, La Loma de las Cruces where people gather to have a good time because it's close to San Antonio. It's also the site of a small handycraft market. It has very nice views of the city as well.
If there's one thing I defintely fallen in love with in Colombia, that thing is the arepa. They are not as awesome as baleadas but they're great. I think I wrote about arepas before... expect more. Staying with Adrián was a great experience. Not only he and his family are super great they treaed us as part of their family. We even had the chance to celebrate with him his birthday. We even were the first ones to congratulate him! But it was time to keep going South, to Popayán. So we said goodbye and started to head to where we thought it was a good place to hitch.
