Oiga, Mira, Vea (popular salsa song about Cali)
Cali is one of my most favorite cities in Colombia (along with Medellin, Bogota, and Cartagena....I guess I kinda like it all....) My first year I went to visit about 10 times. The first time with my first friend from GI, Stephanie. (See previous post from 2009.) The second time with my friends Desiree and Sharon, who came to visit me. We had an amazing time, and I also had two very important firsts. One: I stayed at Hostal Tostaky (http://www.cafetostaky.blogspot.com/) The place where I have stayed every single time I went to Cali, even when someone offers me their couch. And two: I met Ed. I´LL MISS YOU ED!!!!
This trip was with one of my closest friends, Maricela. She was a new arrival this year, and we have a lot in common: music, comida picante, Spanglish, sometimes a little gossip, and more...I knew this would be my last trip to Cali, and we had never gone together, so she came with to do all my favorite things! First and foremost, to stay at Tostaky and get comfortable there.
About an hour after arriving, we were in our dresses, and looking good. We were ready for the number one thing to do in Cali, Colombia: SALSA!!!!! My favorite club is TinTinDeo. (http://www.tintindeo.com/ If you watch the video for a while, it will show people dancing, give you an idea of what it is like.) I went to lots of different salsa clubs before TinTinDeo, and none after. It is the best place for one main reason: you get asked to dance by lots of different people, and all they want to do is dance. We were there about 10 minutes before we both got asked to dance. Since we were two girls alone, we barely stopped dancing the whole time. Unfortunately neither of us had a camera, so no pics from that night. My favorite group of dance partners for the evening was a group of men older than my dad, but, wow, did they know how to dance! The owner of Tostaky came by for a while, so we sat down with her and her friends at the end of the night. I think that 4 hours of salsa dancing balances out the small bottle of rum Maricela and I drank between the two of us. Although, the next morning I found out that was not the case.
At about noon I finally crawled out of bed and Maricela and I went to my breakfast place of choice. (As you can see, I have a pretty specific routine that I follow when in Cali.) The italian bakery, Pan Dolci, is close enough to Tostaky to walk there. It was too late for breakfast, so we had lunch, but it was as delicious as always. After that we went by the ATM, where we had another encounter with Colombia kindness. After stopping at the ATM, we crossed the street and began walking to see El Gato del Rio. (See previous Cali post from 2009 for pics last time I was there.) Suddenly, a man is running to catch up with us. It is the police officer (or soldier, Im not sure which) that we saw standing guard by the ATM. He handed over Maricela´s wallet, full of cash from our recent stop. Apparently when we ran across the street to avoid crazy Colombian traffic (See post "Four...") her wallet had bounced out of her open purse. It looked like it may have been run over. He had dashed into the street to return her wallet safely to her, credit cards, identification card, cash, everything. I guess he is a police officer (or soldier) so he is supposed to be honest and do wonderful things like that, but obviously a life saver for Maricela. That would have put a serious damper on the great time we had been having so far.
After El Gato del Rio, and all of his girlfriends, we went to El Parque Artesanal, another place that I think I have gone EVERY time I`ve been to Cali. It´s where I always go to get gifts for friends, family, and myself. It has a lot of handmade jewelry, musical instruments, wall hangings, hammocks, scarves, etc... I got a lot of my final stash of gifts for the final trip home this time. Not to mention, I got an oversized ring for myself too.
Later that evening, a friend of mine, Rita (who taught with me in Armenia last year), was throwing a party at her apartment. They had rented the event room of their building, which was actually a large patio with open air. Did I mention that the weather in Cali is wonderfully hot year round? Worst case scenario, it is too hot, and very rarely, it rains. We ordered pizza while we helped them set up for the party. They rented a DJ and had piñata. (Piñatas, by the way, are one thing that Mexicans do much better than Colombians. Here, piñatas are really just decorated boxed with strings at the bottom to pull the thing open if you want to get real lazy about it.) Rita always throws great parties, and this was no exception. Actually I have to say, it may be the best show I´ve seen from her yet. At some point in the middle of the night we got shut down by the neighbors, who called security. Lasted a lot longer than it would have in the States, but we were all still disappointed. (Stay tuned for the upcoming video of Rita and Sam´s Blasian Invasion, I Want to Date a Billionare video.)
As this was NOT a three day weekend, the next day we had to bus it back to Armenia. Sunday night I graded my final exams (No more grading for me!!!!) and went to bed early for work on Monday. Monday was closing ceremonies at school, where I gave away the official awards for Math and Science. It is always so nice to give those awards, so I decided this year to give everyone in my class (those who weren´t exempt from any exams for good grades, so the students who don´t usually get awarded) some kind of certificate from Most Improved to Best Laugh to Most Dramatic. Some of them had to be repeated, I mean, come on, I couldn´t possibly come up with 40 unique adjectives! It was a goodbye to many of my students. I will see a few around town before I leave, but that was the last time I will see some of the faces that have been such a big part of my life for the last year. It is a funny relationship between teacher and student, I am quite sure I am more attached to them than they are to me. I didn´t cry, but a couple of hugs did tear me up. Both years here have been challenging, but I really feel like I ended on a good note, and a big part of me wants to stay another year or two until I can really perfect the improvements I´ve made. Teaching is a profession I will do again someday, but maybe not for a while.
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