Cali, Curry, and (the perils of living in) Colombia*

*The title of this blog post is a nod to Kristin over at Coffee, Calculations, and Colombia, who recommended only the best of Cali and who we definitely appreciated!

This weekend, Warren and I headed to Cali along with our friends Marcela and Lindsey. After a quick bus ride down into the valley where Cali is located (quick being just over 3 hours) on Saturday morning, we were in Cali--the third largest city in Colombia. Cali is famous for salsa dancing and hot weather... and although I didn't get to experience the salsa dancing, the hot weather I can definitely vouch for!

With a lot of help from Kristin, we had a great list of things to do, and as soon as we dropped our bags (at Pelican Larry Hostel--friendly staff, loud partying backpacker crowd) we headed out for lunch.

Let me just say--Cali was worth it for the food. For lunch we had sushi, vegetable tempura, and summer rolls at Fusion Wok in the Granada neighborhood. Excellent! We enjoyed our food so much, we forgot to take pictures of it--but the restaurant itself was gorgeous and we had a great meal.

After lunch we met up with Kristin, who happily showed us around the historic parts of town. After touring a beautiful old church, we began walking towards an artisan's market... and here's where the story gets a bit upsetting.

After discovering the stairs to nowhere (above), a motorcycle pulled up next to our friend and tried to steal her cell phone. When our friend resisted, the man said to give him the cell phone because his partner had a gun. Our friend looked up and saw a gun pointed at her. Then the first man fell off his motorcycle, dropping the cell phone he had taken. Our friend grabbed the cell phone, and the man sped off. We did not notice what was happening until they had gone, but our friend was very upset. A man who lived across the street had seen the end of the exchange and offered to let us come inside while he called a taxi. While we waited for the taxi, the guys on motorcycles came back, but left when they couldn't find us. We soon hopped into a taxi and headed towards the artisan's market, shaken.

We're all fine. We were in a normally safe neighborhood. It was simply a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it still tainted our weekend considerably.

At the Artisan's Market, we all tried to gain our composure, calm down, and find cheap jewelry. We almost succeeded in the first two, and we definitely found some cute headbands.

Marcela at the Artisan's Market

After the upsetting afternoon, we headed to Chipichape Shopping Center, which has a Zara, and as we all know, Zara makes everything a little bit better.

After shopping, we ran to Exito for some cheap wine and snacks, which we happily took back to our hostel and enjoyed completely. We then headed to Platillos Voladores (Flying Saucers, because the food is "out of this world", according to the menu), which is a Thai themed restaurant that Kristin had recommended. It was excellent. I had a delicious plate of Thai Green Curry with Tofu, and it was by far the best meal I've ever had in Colombia. It was a good way for all of us to calm down and begin to enjoy our weekend again.

After dinner, we went to Parque del Perros and happily drank beer in the park, which is what the Colombians were doing, too! It was great and we had a lot of fun, especially at the expense of poor Lindsey, who a bird unfortunately pooped on!

The next day, we headed to Cali's zoo, which is absolutely gorgeous. We spent a very lazy morning walking around and goofing off. It was very relaxing and definitely a highlight of our trip. After a quick lunch, we headed to the terminal and caught a bus home. All things considered, it was a great weekend... but.

I have never dealt with any kind of violence or crime in Colombia in all the time I've traveled and lived here. Perhaps it was inevitable that something would happen at some point, but I like to think of Colombia as being generally safe as long as I'm careful. I also like to tout the glories of Colombia to all my readers in the hopes that you'll make it here eventually, so I almost didn't post anything about the "incident". In the end though, I think it is important to know that crime does still exist in Colombia, and while it's generally very, very safe, it's always best to be smart and to stay with a group.

Also, I just want to emphasize one last point: please don't think Cali is a bad place--we had a great weekend, ate great food, and had a lot of fun. I highly recommend it if you ever visit Colombia. It's important to let bad experiences remain bad and to remember the good--especially when you've just been to a zoo full of Titi monkeys.