Cali, Capital de la Salsa

So I ended up in Cali, the Capital of Salsa. After meeting two Swedish guys in our hostel, Graham decided to become sick and I decided to join them for a night out. The taxi dropped us off at "Calle 6", a street which looked like a Disney land of salsa/reggaeton clubs. After two beers, the first girl invited me for a salsa dance. Since I had a refresh salsa course the day before, I was eager to join her to the dance floor.

And so along the (party) way I understood how Colombian parties work; the dj starts playing a song, you scan the bar for a dance target, then ask the lady to join you to the dance floor and when she does not refuse your gentle act (9/10) you start shaking that booty with her. Once there, you have the right to shake her 360° and dry hump her as much as you want. Exaggerated? Not at all; this is the way it works... After the song, the dance is over. Everybody runs back to his table with friends, and the whole show starts over again...

Feria de Cali: thousands of people watching Salsa

Half a day later, the Swedish and I went to la Feria de Cali, the annual festival. You cannot imagine how crazy thát was. I found myself in a crowd with thousands, maybe millions of people. Everywhere you could hear salsa. In the middle of the streets, starting from of a salsadromo, salsa dancers showed their best moves to the enthousiastic crowd.
As we were a group of gringos we were often attacked by people with foam sprays. Funny, of course, but it got even more funny when I bought my own foam spray. Together with a gang of foamers, we had a great party next to some cars with sound systems comparable to those of the Fuse club in Brussels.

The grigno club: Swedish and Brazilians

Grigno who doesn't care about the foam attack

We continued the night in a huge park, where thousands of people were dancing salsa. Again, I danced many times again, until a very attractive girl asked me for an interview. "Colombian Television? Por que no!", I replied. And I told her that me gusta mucho bailar salsa con la gente de Cali, y la fiesta esta muy loca. If I could dance salsa? "Claro!" And so I had to prove to her that I could dance salsa just in front of national television.

Prooving my salsa skills on national Colombian television

Cali was a little bit mind-twisting; at one hand, we got robbed, and at the other hand, I enjoyed crazy crazy fiestas in this dodgy but wonderful city.

Nelson's case

A few days ago we were in Cali, a vivid Colombian city. It was smashing hot, but the burning sun didn't stop us from climbing the mountains to ultimately get a view over the city.
During the hefty hike, we met Nelson. He opened his bag showing a badge and a gun, explaining to us that he was an off-duty police inspector. When we reached the top of the hill, he convinced us to do some push ups and sit ups, we took some pictures and eventually prepared for the descent.

Exhibit A of the robbery investigation: double barrel shotgun

When we walked down, fate decided to strike. 6 armed and screaming guys suddenly appeared, pointing their guns at all possible random body parts. At one moment, a shotgun was pointed at Dimitri's... shotgun.


They took our wallets, sunglasses, money, camera and cellphone. Dimitri asked for his identity card, but one of the guys just called him a "ya motherfuckkah". That guy had no manners whatsoever! Even Nelson lost his belongings to the bastards. Of course, when they found out that Nelson was a cop, things got a little bit tense and a few things that surely weren't meant were yelled our way. In the end though, the three of us walked away and lived happily ever after.

Nelson drove us to his office, where we met his colleagues and where we did the necessary paper work.

We have full confidence in the investigative skills of Nelson and his team and expect our stuff to be found any time now.

Good luck, Nelson!
Graham & Dimitri

Tech Talk

As you probably noticed, there is a dynamic map on the right side of this blog. Not only is it possible to see where we are right now, it is also possible to track down our previous locations and see the whole itinary.
This feature is linked to the Google Latitude service, which automatically updates through our cellphone and laptop. So basically we don't have to do anything but carry our devices with us.

As this was not a standard application, our fellow friend @boskabout from @shadowmedia programmed it for us. He fetches our publicly available postion data from Google's servers and pushes that information into a database. Then, the script wraps it all together on a map and draws some lines. We would like to thank that dudemaster!!

As you see, we are currently in Cali, where we will join a massive salsa feria. After Pasto, we will head for Peru, bussing down through Ecuador.

Salento - the making of Belgian cowboys

On our way to Salento in Columbia, we had a discussion about what elements would make for an unforgettable experience during our world trip. One of the inevitable answers was the risk-reward paradigm: the more risky the activity, the higher the adrenaline rush, the longer we will remember and talk about it afterwards. We decided to put this theory to the test in Salento.

The first day we decided to engage in horseback riding through the beautiful landscapes. Despite the fact that we had mentioned that we had no experience whatsoever, the guide assigned a restless horse to Graham. Sure enough, the horse didn't seem to understand Flemish and most likely had a history as a rodeo-horse trying to throw its rider of its back (danger level 6/10). The guide appeared reasonable when he eventually agreed to give Graham a calmer horse. However, ten minutes later he started whipping the behind of Dimitri's horse, yelling something that sounded like "Vamos vamos! Mas rapido!" Before Dimitri knew what was going on, his horse was galloping at an estimated speed of 200 miles per hour (danger level 7/10). On the upside, next time anyone asks, we can tell them we have loads of experience.

Belgian cowboys

Next on the schedule was a visit to a local eco coffee plantation. After picking our own coffee beans we admired the process of extracting the beans, as well as the fermentation and drying process. Despite the fact that it was explained to us that all healthy beans are kept for export, and all the remaining beans are used for Columbian coffee, we gladly drank a cup of Columbian coffee at the end of the tour (danger level 2/10).

Our coffee guide

Today we decided to head towards the Valle de Cocora. Since all seats in the jeep were taken, we jumped onto the back ledge of the jeep, holding on to the metal bar on the roof (danger level 5/10). At first the five hour trek reminded us of some of the situations we encountered at the Lost City trek: mud, rivers, mountains and exhaustion. Just when, near the end of the trek, we started wondering why we had taken on this endeavor, we stumbled onto a magnificent valley filled with palm trees 60 meters high, the largest in the world. A truly unique sight, once again. Oh Colombia Colombia, que lindo pais!

Enormous palm trees!

An exciting city, Medellin

I got excited in Medellin. This city, 1500 meter high, lies peacefully on mountains and hosts more than 2,5 million inhabitants. Skyscrapers, universities, business districts, lot's of traffic: you feel the ambition of the Colombians here and you can even smell it in its thumping reggae-salsa bars and discothecas. The place had been announced to us by many Colombians and travelers as thé place to see beautiful Colombian guapas. I have to agree - if the makers of Tomb Raider need an actress again, they better look for Lara Croft here.

A big river in the valley parallels a highway, which both divide the city physically.  However, it is here, next and above the river, that hundreds of huge Christmas decorations brightly invite you to taste local food and drink some Club Colombia cervezas.

Christmas in Medellin

As a traffic engineer, I was excited to see Medellins popular metro system including several 'metrocable' lines which give the slums on the hills the chance to improve life quality and which provide the people all over the city connections to the business in the city. And when you need individual public transport, you can call one of the 40.000 taxis.

Metrocable over Medellin

As you can see on the photo stream, the architecture of the public spaces is jaw-dropping. Two hours by bus more far away stunning nature will fill your lungs with fresh air on the Piedra del Peñol.

Piedra del Peñol, un monolito de 220 metros de altura

Piedra del Peñol: view down

What excited me the most this week, was my visit to the center of the city and a supermercado, called... éxito. You think that shopping is fun in your country? Come to Medellin and think again. If you need sneakers, you'll find shopping centers with hundreds of shoe stores. Shops have dj's, some including selling mc's. Salsa music pumps through the streets (not very exceptionally in central and south America though - while I am writing this in the bus, a guy makes life salsa music) and hundreds of salesman all over the place are selling small things, ranging from cookies, bananas, telephone chargers to glow sticks and lottery tickets.
Supermarkets are vivid 'try and buy' experiences, where you can let yourself assist virtually everywhere. In almost every row there are promo girls and boys who let you try/taste some product. When we didn't know where to begin with the huge variety of fruits, a friendly guy gave us plenty of advise and he even let us taste several frutas.
At the end of the trip you have your own packing slave. And after a coffee or desert outside, an assistant will be happy to stop a cab for you.

Nisperos fruit: delicous! € 1,4/kg

I could continue for hours, but you got the point. Medellin has been an exciting  part of the traveling do far. Quiero mas lo mismo!

dM3

La ciudad perdida: real-life Tomb Raider

When we decided to join the five day trek towards the lost city in the Colombian jungle, we hadn't exactly expected it to turn out like this. Sure, the helpful lady in the office of the tour organization had warned us that on the last day, we would have six or seven hours of walking. She had also mentioned that on the third day, we would climb 1200 steps to reach the magnificent lost city of the indigenous Colombian tribes.

"No problem", we had thought.

She had however failed to mention that the path would be non-existent at some points, completely covered in mud or slippery stones, would be flat for no more than 100 meters each day and would have sheer drop-offs where we were supposed to jump from one slippery stone to another.

One of the overnight camps

She also hadn't mentioned that a few years ago, there had been a death on the trail. Not death by a bite by one of the many poisonous animals, not by malaria or dengue fever, not by dehydration in the jungle heat, not by falling to death at an inadvertent moment, not by one of the many guerillas which used to populate the area before the army took control, but by a wild river crossing which mercilessly drags anything that crosses its path onto the many rocks further on.

Jungle protection | River crossing

Needless to say, it was fantastic. The Ciudad Perdida was built between the years 700 and 1500 and became a refuge for the indigenous population when the Spanish arrived at the shores at South America. Hunted by the conquistadors and European diseases, the city was later abandoned, only to be discovered by grave robbers in the 1970's. Even though the guides assured us there would still be a lot of gold buried in the numerous graves, Dimitri dared to dig despite the intimidating military presence after which he got lost in the lost city.

La ciudad perdida

After about 50 kms of climbs and descents in five days with our backpacks, we truly felt like the world was not enough. While we can hear Graham's colleague Stefaan thinking "Wussies, I do that kind of thing in my sleep", we still felt a great deal of satisfaction, as well as muscle pain.

The next few days we will be heading up even more north, up to Cabo dela Vela, to discover some deserted deserts!

Graham and Dimitri

Avast mateys!

To honor Graham's bonds with America, we celebrated thanksgiving in the laid back ancient port of Portobelo at Captain Jack's. This man invented/installed an interesting game which kept Dimitri busy (not quiet) for a while. The object of the game is to swing a hook, suspended from a cord across the room onto a nail in the wall.

Captain Jack demonstrating the game

Cheered on by a crowd of backpackers and captains, Dimitri's trademark walk-away swing managed to astonish, and will most likely gain a spot in the local hall of fame, or perhaps the town's own historical museum, which offers an educational insight into the unesco protected fortifications. But more to the point, the captain helped us secure a spot on a stunning sailboat which brought us, as well as a group of talkative travel animals via the San Blas islands to Americas next top destination Colombia.

Interior of the sailboat

During the sailing trip we snorkeled, ate lobster, saw Kuna and had great fun with the Turkish/Argentinan crew, Danish, Swiss, German and Austr(i)a and -lian backpackers. White playas, palm trees, clear blue sky... now we know where Bill Gates got his Windows backgrounds from!

Contemplating the good life.

It wasn't all sunshine and palm trees though. An anonymous thriller novelist described the doomsday events to follow:

On one of the nights at open sea, a seemingly harmless breeze developed into a vicious thunderstorm which left the captains exhausted and exasperated on the lower deck. With the mighty and majestic sea vessel dangerously drifting without direction, and with all others aboard either panicking or vomiting, team D&G stepped up to the plate. While Graham tried to manage the walls of water swarming the boat which now started to more resemble a bath tub than an ocean cruiser, Dimitri took over the steering wheel and performed a 360 maneuver flipping the boat right side up again. When dysentery started to kick in and forced our heroes to share their last double whopper with the starving crew, Graham attempted to contact the coast guard with Morse code, without success. Luckily, Dimitri managed to pick up a WIFI connection from a palm tree Island we passed. After updating his facebook status they got a hold of the A-team which airlifted them out of an impending certain death.

Although the events might have been slightly exaggerated, the survival was celebrated with enormous pizzas upon arrival in Cartagena.

Americas most important walled port during the 15-17th century, Cartagena is a busy nest of fruit sellers, salsa bars, picturesque market places and 4 enormous forts to protect the rich city against badboys on te sea, aka Pirates of the Caribbean. During a tourist tour, we even ended up in the Esmerald center, where specialists mastered the polishing of the green-blue stone. We were impressed by the beautiful jewelry and the Colombian señoras presenting this Colombian export treat. On the hippy colored tourist shuttle, Graham started a a Mexican wave, while the South-American tourists showed us how to sing, make salsa-sounds and lots of enthusiastic cheers.

'Alllllllll aboard!'

Colombia will be visited by the two of us for three to four weeks. Some cities and world-is-not-enough-challenging hikes are on the program. Keep in touch!

Graham & Dimitri