From CALI to POPAYAN

We have turned into civilization!!

The Cauca Valley

From CALI to POPAYAN

After great days of cycling from a finca to another, we started our urbanized phase, from Cali to Popayan. We left the luxuriant Quindio to enter the warm  Cauca Valley, draped with sugar cane fields.

CHECK OUR PATH!

On this map, you can see our path from Cali to Popayan - and even more: to Ipiales, city located on the border with Ecuador. But that's for the next post!

Let's start with Cali!!

Our hearts beat for CALI...!!!!!

Cali's artisanal area

Ahhh Cali... How to start!??!? Both Arthur and I regretted to leave the city. As far as we know the country, Cali would be the city where we would like to live if we would go back in Colombia (or Medellin but we haven't seen it).

As the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, Cali is very dynamic. You can feel its positive energy when you walk down its streets. And maybe now even more since the city will host this year the ninth edition of the World Games!

Apart from that, we enjoyed the fact that people are calm, drivers not too much aggressive – for a Colombian standard ;-) - and the city has a lot to offer. In the end, we just both felt really good over there.

We ended up in a very nice hostel, all new, called la Casa Camaleon.

Such a nice and neat place! We spent 4 nights there and relaxed so much.

And on the big terrace, on the roof of the hostel, we spent some nice evenings, drinking fresh homemade juices (Arthur's art), eating fresh homemade salad - and once in a while throwing ourselves on a huge pizza!

The area of our hostel swarmed with restaurants and shops with a specific touch. The owners do a lot of effort to give their place its own atmosphere. Which is nice, since as far as we discovered Colombia, most of the time, shops in the same area sell exactly the same products. So you can have 10 shops selling the same kind of clothes on the same side of a road. On the other side? Idem!!

We've had diner in this nice restaurant close to our hostel, between books and games. And two good burgers :-D (Again????!!!!)

At the University

"Parlez-vous français ?"

On the first place, we went to the Universidad Santiago de Cali for a jazz concert. We arrived there about one hour before the concert would start, so we decided to visit the place.

From one building to another, we could read the class schedules, sneak in the classrooms and find nice places to wait in, like the library or the university cafeteria area. Of course, the cafeteria area is outside: in Cali, even when it rains, you can enjoy a very warm climate (Told you it's a cool city!!!!!)

In the library, Arthur found a really cool book about... hacking!! :-D He went crazy on it and spent hours reading it and taking notes. Within that time, I dived into literature and civilization books. And had a lot of fun reading French poems in Spanish!

On the walls of the language building, papers were hanging, detailing the programs for English and French. Both intrigued, we decided to look for a French teacher and an English one. To make it short, Arthur ended up in an English class and I ended in a French one. And we've had a really great time!

The students have a good level and it was really cool to interact with them in French and English.

In the English class, Arthur participated to a game with the students. Unfortunately, we don't have any pics since I was in the second French classroom at this moment...

Italo, the French teacher

I know I'm talking again... But I did my best to speak nicely!!!

In the French class, Italo, the teacher, asked his students to prepare some questions for me.

It was a very interesting dialog. especially when we  shared our points of view of Colombia. Arthur and I gave them the positive image we have from the country, thanks to our experiences with Colombian families.

We were both happy about this, since we know the negative image of Colombia around the world obviously affects Colombian people: they know how strongly the situation changed since 10 years from now, but they also see how long it takes for a country to rebuilt its reputation...

After the last class, we met in front of a tienda, where we shared some beers - and ate some empanadas: thanks guys!!!!! It was really nice to spend this time with you!!

Before the last bus, we headed back to the hostel, all happy and disappointed in the same time. Happy because we'd enjoy our time at the university so much; disappointed because we needed to leave the following day...

Goodbye then, dear Cali!! Hope to visit you soon!!!

SANTANDER, a messy economical crossroad

Santander. An unexpected small city, very different from what we had seen before: dirtier, more disorganized, filled with aggressive drivers (well, we found worse drivers, but this is a story for later!!) and where we met a crazy dog, as nationalist as racist! Yes you read me. From the hotel to the shop, this dog barked at me furiously, non stop, following each of my steps. Same story from the shop to the hotel. At least, it made a man rip-roaring on my way back. Since the dog was only barking at me, we both agreed that it was as nationalist as racist!

We didn't spent so much time anyway in the city: Arthur was hammered and crashed on the hotel's bed when I decided to write for the blog on the hotel balcony. At least up there, I was out of reach of anyone – and every dog!!

So yes, Santander is a colorful mess.

A mess of people pushing wooden chariots full of merchandise; a mess of buses arriving from the cities around and a mess of trucks transporting among others sugar canes, coffee products and yuca. 

The reason of it, is that Santander is at the crossroad of cities like Cali, Popayan, Buga or Bueanaventura, giving it a crucial economical position. As you can see on the map below:

Almojábanas

Buñuelos

We still managed to find a nice place to relax in, with coffees, buñuelos and almojábanas, those delicious Colombian cheese breads!!

And we left the day after, thence due South to Popayan!!!

Popayán, 'two small houses built of straw' - Enter the white city!

You can see it on the image below: our trip to Popayan was not easy! But we made it!! And that's worth it.

As the title of this post implies, we left our tent in the bag for a while, since we spent 4 nights in a hostel in Cali, 1 night in another one in Santander and finally 3 nights in a hostel in Popayan. We may have spent one or two nights in our tent in between but let's say it: we definitely enjoyed a warm shower more than once a week!!

As many travelers, we chose the hostel Trail. Comfortable, warm atmosphere, special for its layout and amazing for the music its Scottish owner listens!!!

Time now to visit the city center!! The historical center of Popayan is gorgeous. The city kept its colonial buildings and takes a good care of them. We enjoyed walking in the streets of the White City, as Colombian people call it, and spent time visiting its University del Cauca.

'Po': two

'Pa': straw

'Yán': little house

These words come from the Guambianos, indigenous people who still exist in the area - around 20.000 people actually. From these two little houses built of straw, Popayán became the capital of the Cauca department (different from the Valle del Cauca departement - and remember it well, we will test you on this one!!!).

So here you go! Some pics from the white city!!

The central place of Popayan

  

A church - yes, this one is yellow!

A random street in Popayan

Another random street
of Popayan

The last pic of a random street
of Popayan

Done with the random streets? Perfect, since we introduce you now to the University del Cauca!

See that building below, on the left? Looks like a church right? Well, guess what? It is a church - you are good!!

But now, look on the right, where there is a wooden door... Yes! This wooden door. Well, when you pass  it, you enter a beautiful place... full of students - detail that make you realize that, wow, it is in fact a university!!

Damn you would have loved to work in such a beautiful environment!

The university is organized in squares (like in some Parisian high schools, for our French fellows!), as you can see on the pictures above. You even find different ambiances (isn't that cool!!).

Enough with the ground floor. Let's go to the first one!! (Yeepeee!!!)

Here again, the atmosphere changes with the study area. On the first floor, we passed many doors and reached a big amphitheater, where a student was presenting his thesis.

Fascinated with the subject, and already fluent in Spanish, we decided to listen to his theory. The guy really appreciated our inputs and we had a very nice chat after all.

Please tell me you believed in it - or that at least you doubted...? Ok, of course we didn't grab a word  of the presentation anyway, there was no pictures neither cakes. So we took a couple of pictures and left.

Bye-bye, University del Cauca!

Allez, just one more!!

Ok-ok. Let's stop here!

By the way, you have to realize that these posts bring you closer and closer from the border with Ecuador... And indeed, the next post will be the last one taking place in Colombia!

But what an ending, dear friends!! Well, judge by yourself...

See you soon!!

A&A

From Rio Verde to steep Sebilla

Allez, c’est reparti!!

Here we are, back again on our bicycle sits, pulling up-hill our 5 bags each – such a great feeling!!

The region of Quindio offers so much to see. It is very hilly – our legs confirm it – colorful and rich of dense and luxuriant vegetation.

So to start this post, some pics from the road...

Busy rio after rain

View from the road, with mountains in the background

The little house on the hill

Reaching the clouds

  

So you paddle up, you paddle down, you paddle up again and yes, you suffer sometimes quite a lot but this is so worth it!! So much rain and so much warmth here: nature explodes everywhere. Even on the electric wires - yep!

Look closer at the wires...
(Tulua)

And we are not even in the jungle...

Steep view

On the red lands

After Rio Verde et Pijao, the two pueblos in between which Mike’s finca in located, we headed on Sebilla.

You don't see the shape of the mountain an the steep roads we had to take, but maybe you can imagine how hard it was to climb our bicycles and bags up. Well, we didn’t imagine it: we experienced it!! IT WAS TOUGH MAN!!!!

A great evening chat with finca workers

Exhausted by the steep ride, we decided to add a day to our journey to Sebilla. And we did good!

At the finca we stopped, when we asked for a place to set up our tent, a charming woman welcomed us with a freshly made agua panela, two bowls and a fresh lemon for us to prepare a lemonade if we'd like it. 

Learning expressive languages :-D

On the roof of the house,
with other children, we found a way
to communicate.
This little girl would mimic every grin
we would make!

Real funny :-D

The kitchen house, on one slope

View over the house's roof

Later in the evening, about 10 workers came to us after diner and started to have a chat with us. Two of them were ex-travelers and enjoyed a lot sharing with us their experience and hearing from ours. We also gave them our very positive impression of Colombia and talked about the differences with Europa.

We had some galletas (cookies) and a couple of beers. When we took out our beers, to share them, none of them accepted. Not by politeness but by principle. And we saw that a lot in Colombia: workers refuse to drink during the week, even one light beer. But no problem for the galletas :-)

We are also quite amazed by the amount of non-smokers here!! I can't even remember more than 4 or 5 people that I actually saw smoking when we were living at their place. And for some of them, it's one cigarette per day.

After a couple of hours chatting nicely with the workers, they headed on to their beds. And so did we.

Our future bed, under the lemon tree

A visitor, climbing up the lemon tree - not to play, no-no,
only to retrieve a bunch of fresh lemons needed for fresh lemonade

At rooster signal, we woke up, packed our bags and left the place. Some workers passed by our tent for a last good-bye and as always, cheered us up with warm words.

All energized, we were ready for a tough ride again! Anyway, as usual – but do you really get used to that? :) – the landscapes and the views were so amazing that our efforts are more than rewarded!

One annoying point though: we were approaching this uncertain area, where the guerrillas run rampant... We had been advised by military not to go further on the small mountain roads but to reach the Panamerica. Yerk… No way we would go back to the busy road and share the lanes with those f…ing-stupid-dum-crazy-kind-of-half-the-balls-of-Schumacher (did I say that? Ow no, I just wrote it…). On the other hand, we were not that keen on meeting some guerrilla's fanatics. So... which fanatics would we chose:

• the “I have big balls: look how I drive like an idiot” ones
• or the “I have big balls: look how I put a gun on your forehead” others...?

Well, we decided to choose later. Because at the very beginning of the road heading to the guerilla area, we discovered, hidden behind some hills and high vegetation, a beautiful rio…

My office 100% natural.........................................My bath 100% "pure feeling"

Within one blink, we decided to stop. Arthur found a nice finca, we asked a girl there if we could stay for the night and without an hesitation, she invited us on her lands and lead us to a perfect spot close to the rio.

You can’t enjoy this place as we enjoyed it but we guess the following pictures give you an idea of what we experienced. We could have spent days there. At this altitude, the weather is great: quite warm but you don’t suffocate, being close to the rio.

Ow yes!!

Yeah... we were there :-)

About 30 degrees, a hard biking morning, a rio calling us - very strongly!!

And we kept ourselves busy relaxing there: Arthur worked on his Spanish, I explored the different shapes of the different stones - it's important.

And above all, the tenants of this finca were, once again, so welcoming! The woman offered us a freshly made juice to welcome us, came all the way from her house to our tent with coffee and bread and invited us for dinner. Within the couple of months we travel now, we learned about Colombian hospitality. Therefore, since we travel over here, we always have with us something to give them, to thank them.

So, as you can imagine, under the burning sun, we relaxed one full afternoon long, in the rio, close to it, above it on a warm stone.

Meditating

Ah, round stone

Later in the evening, we had dinner with our hosts, outside on the terrace. At this moment, the rain started to flush down. It is incredible to hear and to see. And to feel our bodies cooling down with the fresh air the rain brings – aaaaahh!! And we were there, protected by the roof of the terrace, happily chatting together.

The next day, we left and finally chose to reach the panamerica. Our hosts convinced us, in giving very good details of where we could go without danger and which area we should avoid, absolutely. So after passing Sevilla, our goal would be Tulua!

Goodbye beautiful rio!!

TULUA: the Colombian Lourdes

Have you ever been to Lourdes, in France? Well, if not, just go to Tulua. The same, much warmer.

This city is marked with religious monuments and a museum keeps the memory of christian founders.

Founders' museum. Look on the walls: each stone is a reminder of each person who gave for the city

The main place and its church

The name "Tulua" has nothing related to religion though: it comes from the Pijao language, meaning "Easy land" - to cultivate, live in.

Inside the church.

As you can see, churches and religious monuments are very well taken care of in Colombia. Which makes a huge difference with their other buildings and houses, for may of them falling apart.

Arthur sitting on the steps in front of the church. On your right, only religious shops. The good thing is, that this area of the city, very touristic, is then also very neat and clean.

A street in the town - and our bikes!!!

Ok ok this is nice. But look how sweet these bikes look on the bottom left!!!

Ooooowww...!!!

Time for lunch! We walked to another area of the city, to park in one of these typical central places that we found in all the villages, towns, cities we passed by: a large square, usually filled with trees to protect people fro the sun, with 8 paths spreading fro the center to the edge of the place.

These places are very alive. People rest there, drinking a fresh fruit juice or enjoying an ice cream. Or, like us, eating half a chicken for lunch - with a couple of arepas and a bunch of potatoes, which annoys Arthur a lot, since he just cares about the chicken - but with or without potatoes and arepas, the price stays the same!

Over here, it is normal to see every 5 minutes someone pushing on a trolley or a bike some food or drinks to sell around.

On this same place, we had the surprise to see an iguana. The city allows a zoo to take some animals out sometimes to show them to people.

This day, it was an Iguana!










After a couple of hours in Tulua, we headed on Buga La Grande, to spend the night there.

BUGA LA GRANDE: our best burger ever

To stay safe, we decided to sleep in a hotel. And we found one on the border of the Panamerica. So we booked a room, brought our bikes up and… started a mess! Which mess? This mess:

As you see, a 3 by 3 room decorated with  long garlands of clothes, hanging on a rope that goes from one corner to another - and wisely attached to the TV

Yep! We urgently needed to wash our clothes! And to avoid spending 2 hours looking for a lavanderia that we wouldn't find in a small city, we decided to wash our clothes ourselves. Also, the sink of our bathroom being too small, we opted for… the shower itself. Much fun.

Our clothes being busy drying, we left the hotel and walked in the direction of the main place.
Is it Artemis, Yumtaax (Mayan god of corn) or Chicomecoatl (Aztecan goddess of corn) who led us there?

Chicomecoatl,
Aztecan goddess of corn

 No clue – but thanks!! Since we enjoyed one of our best burgers ever!!! (couldn't find a god for meat!)


Let me describe it for you – it is worth!! Because yes, there was the bread, the beef meat, the onions and the tomato. But the tomato there was this green crunchy one; the bread had been grilled on the same grill where the fresh meat had also been cooked the way you want; same for the bacon, perfectly cooked crunchy and tasty; and above all, they add those kind of chips that add crunch to the crunchiness of your burger! And where can you find all of this? Just there, on the street, where 4 or 5 other people already wait for their food to be ready, sitting on two lines of chairs nicely organized as a waiting room, outside, between four imaginary walls.

"Come on, show us a picture!!" Would you claim. Unfortunately, we finished our burgers before thinking about remembering of it one day…

Ow, and how much did we pay for this? 5 000 pesos each (around 2 euros). Which is more expensive, though, than when we take a menu de dia, that costs between 2 500 to 6 000 pesos (so 1 to 3 euros) for:

• A chicken soup with potatoes and rice
• A plate of meat with platanos, arepa, red or black beans and rice
• Unlimited amount of juice freshly made

Yes, we enjoy good meals for nothing in Colombia!!

Our night under avatar’s tree

When we started to paddle on the path that led us to the house of the tenant, a cow only noticed our presence. A bit afraid, it emitted an unpersuasive lowing.

Anyway, courageous and not frightened, we passed it. And reached the house.

After a couple of words to understand why the hell we would travel – by bicycle...??!! - around there, they offered us to install our tent under the tree, over there.

Wow! This tree was huge! And very special. Its branches spread widely in the sky and, from the thick roof of leaves, were hanging long chaplets of white flowers. Our both minds immediately linked this tree with the movie Avatar. We tried to take pictures that gives the right effect. Not easy but close:

Our bikes under Avatar's tree

Closer shot

So here we were settled again, in a beautiful environment, close to a river and with very nice people.

Our evening there went very nicely again. We chatted with the couple living here and taking care of the tienda, we ate with them...

...and learned about some beans the woman was working on.

From these beans, people extract an oil used here as a fuel. And apparently, it's worth money! I looked up the name on Internet and I think these are carapate beans, used for what is called in French "huile de ricin", in English "castor oil", in Dutch "castorolie".

With this tasty information (yummy!!), we close this post! Yes, we know you are all sad not to read about our experience in the University in Cali but be patient: this story comes in the next post!

Hasta luego!!

A&A