Cali

photos: mariachi band at kukaramakara, and the main plaza in cali.


great town, perfect climate! there's constantly the fresh smell of exotic fruits in the warm heavy air, but i can't stop sweating with this tropical heat. and i´m loving this about Cali. after the past few days of cold and rain i needed this.

found some great people here at The Iguana and have been swaping some amazing travel tales. just got back from a mexican dinner. this town is ritz: after 2-weeks of living in pueblos its a bit of a shock, overwhelming at first but i'm getting used to it. fixed my wheel today and caught some sights.

tomorrow i'm up at 0445 to meet a group of cyclists for a quick 100-km ride before work. before THEY work, before i siesta. i was at a bike shop around the corner inquiring about the possibilitiy of renting one of the owners used road bikes so that i could ride with some racer-types that go out every day here.... he kept saying "not possible in colombia" and i said that everything has a price. finally he says to me, you can't rent, but you can borrow! so i'm headed out tomorrow morning with he and his posse of about 50 others on a vintage 5 year old Giant OCR with 9spd ultegra... a fairly hot bike for here in colombia and tons faster than my rigged-out surly. we'll see if my legs are up for some fast riding after just 3-weeks on the bike this year. i've ridden with a few solo racers at various points in my travels, but this will be my first in a colombian peleton. this is one of the things i came here to experience.

might be sticking around here for a few more days. there´s a road race coming up right here in Cali... who knows, if it works out i might be getting in my first bike race of the season soon. hard to believe that just 3-weeks ago on sunday i was ski racing.