July 12-14 - Quito, Ecuador

At the equator

I flew from Cali to Quito on the evening of the 12th while still trying to recover from my last night out in Cali. When I arrived at the airport I had to wait for two hours for my two best friends, Sam and Stacy, to arrive from Calgary. I was so happy to see them when they arrived! We took a shuttle to the hostel that we had booked, meet the people in our dorm and went to bed.
The view from the hostel the next morning was spectacular. We were staying in the old part of the city and had a great view from the rooftop terrace. We had a clear view of the nearby basilica, the surrounding colonial style buildings and the view point.

View from hostel

After breakfast we went with one of the guys in our dorm to the equator. We had lunch, then took a tour at the equator and learned about all the weird things that happen there. The water flows straight down on the line of the equator, you lose strength because the force of gravity is less and you lose balance on the line. There were a few other demonstrations and some information about the native tribes there. After the tour we headed back to our hostel, had a few drinks and went to the city center for the evening for more drinks and some food.

The next day we went to a local artisan market, then caught a bus to Banos. Quito was a beautiful city but after seeing so many colonial cities in Colombia I was starting to find them redundant.

July 10-12 - Cali, Colombia

Market

We arrived around 10pm in Cali and headed straight for a nearby hostel and straight to bed. The next morning I decided that instead of rushing out the evening and doing about 20 hours of buses and border crossings that I would slurge a little and booked a flight to Quito from Cali. I had to meet two of my closest friends in Quito the evening of the 12th, which meant with the flight I was able to stay one more evening in Cali. Cali is famous for its salsa dancing scene and was something I definitely wanted to experience.
We spent the day first at a local market grabbing food for the day, then walked over to the old colonial area of town called San Antonio. When we got there we were a little dissapointed. It wasn't anything spectacular and we had seen a lot of much nicer colonial towns in Colombia prior to it. As we were walking through the area it started pouring rain so we ran into the closest cafe to escape it. We order coffees and were delighted to see that they had puzzles there. So for the next 2 and a half hours Steph and I sat on the floor of a cafe and worked on a puzzle.

Steph with the puzzle

After we finished, we headed back to the hostel, made a yummy salad from the veggies that we had bought at the market and got ready to go out to dance. We wandered down the street that was suppose to be the best place in the area for salsa clubs but unfortunately it wasn't very busy. We still managed to find an alright bar and stayed out till 3am trying to learn how to dance. It was an awesome evening!
The next day I had to say goodbye to Steph as she had a little more time in Colombia than I and really wanted to see San Agustin, a really cool looking archaeological site, that I was kinda upset that I had to miss. I had been traveling with Steph along with other mombers of the boat ride from Panana for all of Colombia. I was definitely upset to see her go. But luckily I had the arrival of my friends from Calgary to look forward to!
My flight left at 7pm out of Cali. I was a little upset to be leaving Colombia but excited to get to Quito. Colombia was beatiful, the locals were friendly, there were plenty of fun outdoor activies to do, I tried so many new things I have never experienced before and had the pleasure of travelling with so many awesome people. It was for sure one of my favorite countries in Latin America and I hope one day I get to come back and do the things I unfortunetaly had to miss.

View of Cali