Colombia Part 7: Mountains to the Ocean and Back

So much seems to have happened since my last e-mail! Earthquakes, mice, face swelling...Let me just tell you all about it.

Backing up a few days, we left the beauty of Solento to experience the salsa dancing capitol of the world, Cali. I have to be honest here, Cali has little to offer during the daytime hours - it's muggy, kinda dirty, and reminiscent of most large scale urban sprawl cities I have had the pleasure to experience in my life. However, nightfall creates a vibrant scene of salsa dancing that wouldn't have Baby sitting in a corner if you know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, get up on your pop culture people and rent Dirty Dancing.

A couple days of a hot city and we popped off to see a small village by the name of San Cipriano. Now the people of this little place are ingenious because there is only one way in an out of this crazy place, and that's by railway. You may be wondering how that is ingenious since we have been using rail for years right? Well, there is no train. These dark chocolate colored people (oh, I said that) have rigged up motorcyles to plank boards and toat you throught the jungle down the tracks at amazing speeds. An experience for sure.

Safe and sound, and for sure the only gringos in the town of just 700, we settled into our little hotel (El David) for some good R&R, hahaha. Soooo....first night I wake up to a rustling sound, turn on my flashlight and discover I have a little mouse friend in my room - yay! After befriending a cat, waking up Katie and trying to convince two little Colombian girls to check my room for said mouse, I just go back to bed.
The reaction of the hotel guy was the best, he thought me crazy to care about a harmless mouse and explained it like this, "it's just like Mickey!" I should have told him I am more the Donald Duck type.

Night two arrives after lazy swims in waterfalls and long UNO competitions with local kids who just love Katie and I for some reason. I just close my book an drift into sleep when all of a sudden the earth starts moving. Am I in L.A?! Nope, but yes, it's a rather nice sized earthquake we are having. Local reaction the next day with breakfast lady? "No big deal, everyone is fine, it happens. Did you want milk in your coffee?" and conversation done. Great attitude! However, my North American self was kinda hoping for Newschannel 8 to cover the story endlessly for weeks. No such luck.

After a few days of mice, an earthquake and my repeatedly telling people I don't have nor want a boyfriend, we take the track out of town and head towards the grand ol' Pacific Ocean. However, we have no info on where to go or stay because tourism is still nothing much in this area. I find that just following the flow and listening to locals advice works well so that's how we end up in Juanchoco. Still not sure if this is an island or a jetty as it doesn't appear on my map, we took an hour boatride to our little oasis for a few days.

We splurged on a two night ''all-inclusive'' (soooo not Sandals) hotel with ocean views, a pool, air-conditioning and a T.V. (Ahhh!) so we could relax in comfort a few days, and that's what we did. Nothing. Pure relaxation while I waited for the swelling in my face to ease; thanks to some lovely mosquitos that feasted on my eyelides, nose, forehead and cheek all night. I mean, thanks mosquitoes, my goal was to look like I had elephantitis while at the beach.

Thankfully by the time night fell on our final day I was back to normal, whatever that is. Back to reality of sorts, we made it to Popayan! Looking forward to exploring this Spanish Colonial city, taking in some nightlife, doing some bike rides, maybe mount another horse and perhaps enjoy a volcano or two before trudging forward in our little adventure. Colombia, you just get better and better.