Medallin, Cali, Pasto

After 12 hours from Cartagena arrived at Medallin. There was a time when we wanted to stay in Medallin for an extended period of time, but after 3 days, I was done. It had a "new" area where all the expensive hotels, restaurants, shops are. A bunch of North American and European brands, if you'd just arrive there, you wouldn't say that you're in a 3rd world country. But I don't like areas like that. Everything is expensive, and we can't really afford it, and I'm not too much into window shopping. We walked around the city for a day. Saw some church, botanical gardens, Botero square, took a cable car (which is part of a public transport) to the top and back without getting out :)
On another day we went to El Peniol which is a humongous rock in the middle of nowhere. It's 200 meter high, there is nothing growing on it, and 650 stairs leading up to the top. The view is really nice in there, but there is not much to do. It took us 2 hours to get there, so we spent the whole afternoon on the top just enjoying the view and the sun :) That's pretty much everything about Medallin. On a 3rd day we took a bus south. Geoff got off at Armenia, and I continued to Cali.

pix at http://picasaweb.google.com/ed4330/Medallin#

In Cali just relaxed for a month. Went to gym, a zoo - which is the cleanest zoo I've ever been to.
In the hostel I met one guy while waiting for Geoff. We started talking, and I told him that me and another girl are travelling together, but her sister came to visit, so she went north while I'm waiting for her in here. And he goes, oh yeah, Eva, I know her ... !!!!!!! My jaw fell, I was stearing at him with disbelieve. Apperantly they were together in the same hostel in Medallin. But I guess it's something to get used to. It's very common to meet people here that you met hell knows where. There was one guy who we met in parque Tayrona, then he stayed in our hostel in Santa Marta (which is ok, since they're very close, and our hostel is the most popular one), but then we met him in the same hotel in Pasto which is 31 hours from Santa Marta. And Pasto is huge, with hundreds of hotels in it!!
Also in Cali took some salsa lessons, and assisted Salsa classes in the hostel... oh, and cooked ALOT !!!! I missed home cooking so much, and things that I like to eat, that I was like a crazy maniac spending all days in the kitchen cooking and cooking. I made like 5 different jams too :))) Yummy :)) There was a festival in the city. So myself of 3 of my friends went to sell screw drivers on the street. Vodka and Orange Juice 3500! It was fun ! We sold like 50. And of course it's illegal without a license, but there was a police officer across the street, and he didn't say anything, I'd guess they don't care about small things like that. At the end of the festival there was a final show in the most dangerous place in Cali. 20 people went there mostly from the hostel. And what was funny is that all the backpackers were fine and relaxed, and all the locals paranoid. Why be paranoid?? There was more police there then actual people :) We stood in 4 different line ups to pass 4 checks where you got very extensively searched. One of the most famous salsa bands was playing there, but I couldn't tell the difference. It was nice because it was outside, so we could dance all we liked, and we did dance nonstop for 4 hours. At the end there were one of the most beautiful fireworks I've seen... I also went to a few live music performances of my friend. But other than that nothing special, just relaxed and enjoyed the hassle and the heat of Cali.

7 hours from Cali is a city of Pasto. Every year they have the "black & white" festival. The owner of the hostel (Carlos) and a bunch of his family, and of course Geoff and me went there in 2 cars. First all of us arrived at Carlos's farm on the outskirts of Cali, spent there the night, got woken up at 5 am and were given like 3 minutes to get ready and start driving. The guy in my car was crazy, we drove like 180 km/hr for 7 hours, and it was in the mountains and he was smoking marihuana. I got so motion sick :( I took like 3 doses of pills to control it. After 3 doses I felt better :) Pasto is great ! The streets were packed with people watching the carnival. Meanwhile the whole day and night everybody has foam sprays, paints and flour, and there is a constant war going on between everyone and everybody! It's supper fun chasing after people. There were traps and "gang" fights. The police was sprayed all the time too :) Thank god that our hotel was right in the center of the activity and there was a restaurant inside, so we were safe during the night. We also couldn't get out outside at night because it was getting too cold, and I didn't have warm cloths to ruin, so we were only outside till 6. There were 2 main squares with concerts going all day and all night long. Nobody is getting spared, absolutely everyone is sprayed. Doesn't matter if you don't want to ... if you don't want to, don't be in Pasto during the festival. All the streets were getting whiter and whiter as the days passed by. Once I was casually going on the street, harmless, trying to avoid getting splashed, looking to buy my weapon (the spray can) :) And I got so attacked by so many people, I couldn't see, couldn't breathe, didn't know where to escape to. And people see that you're helpless and being attacked, so more and more and more join in. After like a minute I just lifted my 2 arms up in the surrendering position, and finally they left me alone :)) All Carlos's family and Geoff formed a gang that started to attack cars. First kind of harmlessly spraying through the open windows, but after that, opening doors of cars, there were like 15 people surrounding the car, everybody sprays inside of the car, all the passengers, all the interior, there were some people with flour guns, that put like kilos of flour in one shot. Some people were fine, but my heart sank every time I saw that. I just couldn't imagine how much the cleaning bill would be, and if it all the equipment still work after such an attack. Some people obviously got so insanely mad, screaming, fighting. Someone even pulled a knife out ... I could really understand that! ... There were also fights between cars, it was very funny. There would be pickup tracks going with like 10 people on top, completely armed with everything they can. And once the 2 cars would approach each other, you couldn't see anything anymore, it was a huge white cloud around, no cars, no people, just more and more dust flying up :) You couldn't tell one person from another. Everybody is so white. The cloths, the hair, faces. All you could see is some white figure with sun glasses (which everybody had to have!). So black day is celebrated by people painting each other mostly with black paint. But a bunch of different colors were used, and the white day is the flour. So on the black day, people would come from behind, and put all their hands full of paint on your face. I had so many different colors on me. But each color would cover the other one. So at the end of one day I was completely black, but once I took a shower, there was a rainbow of colors washed off of me :) I couldn't take very good pictures, cause I knew my camera would just die. People would on purpose spray everything that shouldn't be sprayed. So I got out more in the quite time, or took it from hotel balcony, or hid in some corner where I could easily defend myself.This was one of the finest things I did in my life!!! I was so happy that I got to do it, and enjoy something so bizarre and cool and fun ! :))

pix at http://picasaweb.google.com/ed4330/Pasto#