San Antonio

After waking up rather late and having our usual breakfast of toast and jam, pineapple and coffee we decided to go and look round the old town. By the time we left the hostel it was after 11:30 and the day was turning out to be very hot!! We walked the mile or so into town stopping to admire the couple of fountains along the way. We crossed a bridge over a main road and found ourselves walking through a rather pretty park next to the river. After crossing the river we were confronted by a largish church which had been painted blue and white, both of us though that it looked completely out of place as it was surrounded by large office blocks on all sides and due to it's odd colour scheme looked like it should be on top of a cake. As we approached it we also discovered that it's much prettier from far away because when you get close up you discover that the paintwork is all cracked and it's covered in not a small amount of graffiti. Proceeding onwards we walked past the 'Park of the Poets' which had statues of 4 people (I presume famous poets) who are positioned as if having a conversation. (about poetry no doubt) We then walked up a pedestrian street to the city's main plaza, a shaded square complete with the obligatory statue of some national hero (We can even be bothered to read the names anymore!!) commanding the focal point. There was also a rather impressive building covering one side of the square and I assume that it's some kind of government building judging by the police standing guard outside. Next we walked to look at the oldest building in the city which is.... a church (shock!!!!!) As churches go it's quite dull really with no interesting stonework or decorations, other than the as usual impressive doors, to catch your eye. It borders yet another plaza, this one bare apart from the thousand or so pigeons who congregate there and a solitary statue of a monk. We were getting rather bored of our sight seeing by now as Cali is not really a very interesting place to look round, but we thought we should go and look at the small park we could see a short way off. The park is on a small hill in the centre of the city and we climbed the flight of stairs to the top. By now the sun was getting very hot and we briefly considered buying some shaved ice, this idea was vetoed however when he asked for $2 each. We briefly walked around the park admiring the large variety of birds here in Colombia, much greater in fact than anywhere else we have been in South America and rested for 45mins or so on a bench hoping it might cool down a little. When we decided this wasn't going to happen we set off back to the hostel through all the places we had viewed this morning. It was now about half 2 so the city was starting to wake up with people lounging around in the parks and street vendors were finally out and about. On the way back we stopped at the super market to pick up some eggs and plantains and arrived at the hostel about 3. We both had a shower and then decided it was time for dinner, which today consisted of more rice and beans, boiled egg and fried plantains, which turned out rather better than expected. After dinner we went upstairs and watched the end of a rather strange film on TV and spent the rest of the evening chatting with some of the other guests until 2am.