After 2 flights we arrived to the city of Cali feeling pretty chuffed that we just turned a 28 hour bus trip into 4 hours. After a little confusion from our cabbie on the directions to the Iguana Hostel, we made it there at about 5pm.

After getting settled in our room (which was huge!!) we headed to the common area where we chatted a little with 2 friendly girls from Amsterdam. Apparently the hostel offered salsa classes, and being the city of salsa in Columbia we agreed to join them for their 8pm class. So with hungry bellies we set off down a gorgie looking street in persuit of food. We found it at a nice Mexican restaurant where our small portioned food was slightly overpriced yet ALAS, the beer was cold and our spirits high for our upcoming class.

We made it back to the hostel just in time and joined the 2 girls, an English guy, an Irish guy and a Japanese girl for our class to begin and where we would learn the rythum, soul and sensuality of the SALSA. For the next hour we tangled our legs, laughed, swore and yet somehow managed to get the hang of the (very) basic steps. With sweaty faces from the humid night, we agreed to shower quickly and meet back in the common area for some common drinks!! We decided to organise cabs and be on our way into town to begin the experience of salsa clubbing. As it was around 11:30pm the clubs were still a little quiet yet and after a while of sitting in our cab and wandering what to do, one of the girls took the role of leader and lead us out of the taxi and onto the street......soooo what next. Ummm, that part she didn't know. But we managed to find a bar/club that seemed to have a few people in it so we ventured over and got stuck into a couple jugs of beer. After a few coonfidence drinks we decided it was time to take the plunge and show Columbia what Australia has to offer in the form of Salsa....apparently not much. To be fair, dancing next to a Columbian is like trying to cook with a 3 hat chef. You really just don't stand a chance!! However with our hearts full of pride and our bodies full of beer damn we gave it our all and Lex even managed to throw a spin in here and there..... it was a little jerky but it served its purpose.

At around 3am we decided to call it a night and we jumped in a cab and headed back. Once there Lex, Sebastian (English guy) and I decided we were a little hungry. So, saying goodnight to the girls we headed back out in search of food. On the way we ran into a lovely bunch of prostitues however on closer inspection realised they were tranvestites and oh my god did they find Lex and Sebastian extremely interesting. They were like bees to honey.....Sebastian trying to be polite to begin with told them with an apologetic smile "no gracias" and after about 5 times of saying this had to literally push them away from him. Lex on the other hand had 2 pretty ones groping his nether regions and trying to run away. And as for me....I stood on the side lines and could do nothing but wet myself from laughing. Luckily the buys were good sports but I think they left the streets different people. I found it hilarious. After that Sebastian ate some kind of fries, horse or dog or whatever the hell it was....we made it back to the hostel and fell into bed at around 4:30am.

The next morning we were awoken at miday by the Amsterdam girls knocking on our door to say goodbye as they were leaving to continue their journey. We said our goodbyes and after a shower and breaky got ourselves ready to check out the mall. We arrived and after I had a couple of minutes to regain my composure and convince my body that I definately did not need to be sick at the mall we continued on our way in persuit of a travelling laptop. Which after a little searching we found!!! Thanks for our Christmas present Bruce and Neryl! We bought some groceries and headed back to the hostel where we played with our new toy and hit the hay.

We were supposed to head to St Agustin the next morning where we would see some burial grounds and canyons, however I came down with a stomach bug and fever so unfortunately had to miss the trip yet it worked our for the best as the roads were very dangerous from the rain that Columbia had been recieving over the last few days.

So the next day and with me feeling considerably better, we jumped on the bus for our stop over stay in Popayan that would then take us to Ecuador!!!