Casualty
Trip Start
Jan 17, 2008
1
181
186
Trip End
Jun 30, 2009
The bus journey was long and tiring, especially as we were both feeling under the weather, though the scenery was extremly picturesque. When we arrived in Cali, at around 6pm, I stupidly left my jacket on the bus, so had to chase the bus into the depot to try and track it down, unfortunately there were loads of buses from the same company, and I could not find the one we had used, so in vain, headed to the office, the man there helped me out and called the depot, tracking down the jacket for me, which we picked up on the way to our hostel. The hostel was difficult to find, a taxi driver turned out not to know the way around his own city, and also the hostel had moved from the address we had in the lonely planet, the new location was located in the posh part of Cali, looking something like California, really smart , lots of white washed modern buildings, not what we had expected at all. We had a really nice meal at a gourmet pizza restaurant, not far from the hostel, and went to bed. Both of us were feeling ill, I was feeling better than I had done in Pasto, though Daniella had started to feel ill too, getting a rash and having headaches. So we decided to go to the doctor and find out what was wrong with us. We found out there was a clinic not far from the hostel, so made our way there. It cist about 20000 pesos, or 7 pounds for the appointment, which is not bad as this is a private clinic, although unfortunately there was still a long wait to see the doctor. SO we were checked over speaking in Spanish to the docotr, as they did not speak much English, the doctor said we should have a blood test, then after the test, it was another 2 hours of waiting before the results were ready. On being called in, the doctor told us the results looked like dengue fever, so the second time for Daniella and the first time for me, unfortunately the doctor also informed us that there is no cure, only keep taking paracetemol, drink lots of fluids and rest, which we had been doing anyway. So we did not have the oppurtunity to enjoy the best of Cali during our stay, as this is a city famous for its nightlife, the pair of us not really feeling up for nights of barcrawling. We did book our flight out of Cali, we are flying to Cartagena via Bogota, then flying back to Bogota from Santa Marta. We are fed up with long bus journeys, so its plane the rest of the way for us! One Cali attraction we did not miss was the city zoo, billed as Colombias best zoo. There was a good variety of animals on display, I particularly liked the ostrichs, they are very tall up close, but have such a small head they must be pretty stupid, it was interesting watching them interact with each other. Cali is extremly hot, especially around lunchtime, it gets to around 34 degrees, best to keep in the shade and the air conditioning, It was a big shame that we could not enjoy the best of Cali nightlife, but we are both looking forward to spenidng the bulk of our time in Colombia, on the Caribbean coast.
