Cali day 3 - Sunday

Lunch is the most important meal of the day in Colombia. Lunch is the big meal and then dinner / supper is usually a snack rather than a big meal.







After eating an early lunch at Humberto and Lucero's we drove to Jamundi where Humberto and Lucero have bought land so they can build a house in the country. This view is from their plot looking west to the Los Farallones de Cali montain range. The services in the development include a club house with a swimming pool, sauna and steam room and a soccer field and two tennis courts under construction.
We then took a drive several miles into the mountains on a dirt road. The scenery was spectacular, but the drive was somewhat harrowing with big trucks, cars of all shapes and sizes, motorbikes and cyclists also traveling on the single lane road. We eventually turned round after we reached a bridge over a scenic river and headed back to Cali.







After dropping Lucero, Manuel Jose and Sofia at home we continued into Cali to look at some of the sights. This is a statue of the founder of Cali - on July 25, 1536 (Sofia's birthday) - Sebastian de Belalcazar.

Once again there were many entrepreneurial vendors at the site, and we bought some roasted corn to eat.





Next was the church of San Antonio standing on a hill with spectacular views of the financial district and downtown. Once again there were many vendors arond the parking lot and we bought some more roasted corn to take home for breakfast in the morning.





This a view from the San Antonio church across the artist's district of San Antonio - where it is prohibited to build houses taller than two storeys - to the skyscrapers in the finacial district and city center. The skyscraper on the left is a residential building just outside the western edge of San Antonio district.





On the western side of the Belalcazar monument parking lot is a view of the Cali River seen through the trees.

This view of the river is in the west of the city. The river winds through Cali from east to west and at one point has a dozen or so painted cat statues in a park next to the river.


From San Antonio church we drove through the San Antionio area looking for El Penon park where we had been told there was a street market of paintings for sale. We wanted to add to our collection of paintings from places we had visited. We eventually found the park and looked at the large varirty of oils and watercolors and found an artist who painted watercolor scenes of the area. We liked and bought two paintings, one of Hacienda El Paraiso and one of the San Antonio church.

We made one more stop at a book store and bought a book on Colombia with pictures by an English photographer and ordered a second book with Colombian recipes that we will pick up on Tuesday.

For our last stop of the day we went looking for Arepas de Choclo. These are Arepas cooked in a special earthen oven, then split in two, filled with Colombian white cheese and reheated. Despite the fact that I don't like corn bread, I love Arepas de Choclo and these are essentially the same as cornbread since they are made with corn and sugar blended together. An Arepa and a Poker beer made for a nice supper before we headed home for the night