We are stuck in Cali! We have been meaning to leave since New Year’s Eve, and yet we remain. If there is anything to the old wives tale that how you spend New Year’s reflects the rest of the year, then we will be surrounded by fantastic people salsa dancing until after sunrise and unable to make a commitment to leave. Throw a little romance in for good measure (we are in Latin America for goodness sakes!), and it’s a pretty good picture of our time here. Doesn’t sound too bad, right??
We are couch surfing in Cali during their Feria, and we are being hosted at our friend’s restaurant and salsa lounge, Latin Lounge, in the middle of the tourist neighborhood of San Antonio.
It is the most laid back and chill environment, with various combinations of couch surfers and hosts, tourists, and locals passing through at different times of day. For a week the entire town is partying from after 1pm until after sunrise. Honestly, since we have our tent sent up in the back courtyard behind the restaurant, and the sun is too brutal after 9am, we are quite sleep deprived.
We wake, eat some breakfast, help clean up the restaurant for the day (since there was undoubtably a party the night before), take a quick walk about town, and then start chatting, dancing, and laughing with interesting people at where ever the day’s activities are. These have ranged from going and playing games and having a water fight at the park, going to the river to swim and attempt to make a soup in nature,
parade watching, and having BBQs and movie nights. Then our evenings mainly consist of salsa or any other variety of Latin dance. So, so much amazing salsa (but it never seems quite enough?)!
We get varying degrees of reports as to the safety of Cali. It seems pretty average from what we have experienced thus far, but locals are sure to warn us about having our camera out in the Centro, or the recent drug-related shooting that took place at a park in our neighborhood. Our friends always make sure we are well taken care of, though, and we have never been near any danger. Like Medellin, there is so much intense recent narco-history here and it’s touched the lives of all of our local friends.
But we have gone out and explored the city, and have been impressed by the range in style and architecture here. They have amazing brickwork and adobe buildings right up against modern high rises, colonial colonnades next to intense Bauhaus cement structures. Every street has its own unique charm. Like the cultural center in the Centro that I just couldn’t stop staring at:
But with the Feria requirements in our time we have spent most of the days relaxing, hanging by the house with our couch surfers in our flop-house-esque style restaurant. Most people come to surf for one to two days and end up staying anywhere from a week to two months! We are not alone for sure! And it gives us plenty of time to dress H’s hair like princess Leia or other such excitement.
But we did have to make a trip to pick up new dancing shoes for H since her ridiculously good dance partner danced the others off her feet in pieces! We spent hours looking for an inexpensive pair (we couldn’t seem to find anything that compared to Panama City shopping 😥) until we stumbled upon “remates” shoes.
A massive pile of mismatched shoes? Crazy day for sure!
The best thing, though, is the salsa. We went to a club called Tin Tin Deo last night and had a fantastic time being swept around the room. Salsa in Cali is epic! We are officially addicted for life ☺!
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Rule #2: Don't Die. 
I love salsa – it sounds like fun! Did Nickel find a mismatch pair of shoes? It seems like it could be perfect for her rainbow style!
Not mismatched, but very rainbow vomit! Get ready to dance while you are here, bring shoes you can twirl in ☺