***
Tuesday.
Arriving Cali, mid-afternoon was like a dream. After all the hassle of big airports, it was an anticlimax and a pleasant such. All the stress was like melting away in the provincial laid-backness of the caleño people and personnel. Nobody ran, nobody sweated nobody complained. After pulling out our suitcases from the belt we went out to find our ride to the hotel and there he was, with a my name written on a piece of cardboard. He was suprised, though, that I was Pirjo, they had thought all the time I was a man and tried to address Hanski calling him "Pirjo". Well, we set that right, got in the car and drove to Cali and then through the city through Alfonso Lopez (not a good choice to bring tourists to Cali) but our driver said the traffic was bad on the main route through the city.
The hotel was pretty much what we expected.
Situated just a few blocks away from Tequendama park and the house where we lived for ten years and where my children were born the choice was given: at walking distance from my Lido house and Cosmocentro, two blocks away from the 39 st and Roosevelt Prolongación, the location was perfect for us. The reception was manned by friendly, smiling young people who got us settled in a second up in a third floor room with a view to a side street with enough vegetation to please the eye. The AC worked, the wi-fi was free and fairly dependable connection was established and the bathroom had hot water on the tap.
***
I was looking forward to an early closure of that day it had been a long trip and I longed for a warm shower and plenty of water or something to drink; my blood sugar level had peaked and my mouth was dry and I was exhausted after the trip with only five hours total sleep in two nights plus maybe two 20-minute periods on the plane. We found beer and soda in the fridge and popped open a can of local brew; I had maybe two sips and I was not feeling sober any longer. We hadn't eaten so I suggested we went out to get some dinner and had after a few steps, checking out a coffee shop in front of the hotel bumped into old friends, by chance. Carmenza Gomez and her husband were sitting there, with some friends and recognized me at once. It was a flurry of hugs and rapid Spanish; Hanski had no idea who they were. (Carmenza and I were old school mates from Pre-school education in Camacho, we had been in the same study group and had met every time I travelled to Cali together with the other ladies in that group.) We got some tips from them of a good restaurant and leaviing the coffee shop heard people calling my name.....and yes, the welcome wagon was in place :)My ex-brother-in-law Hugo, wife Graciela, Clelia, the ex-housekeeper and her daughter Adelaida and niece Camila, Graciela brother Carlos and his wife Clelia. We ended up in a Panaderia and they fixed some carne asada, soda and empanadas for us...the meat was extremely tough, but the empanadas were ok and I drank at least a liter of Premio Rojo with tons of sugar....
We went back to the hotel, euphoric and dead tired and had no problem falling to sleep.
***
Wednesday.
Next morning, after a shower, we went down to the reception to pick up breakfast vouchers to next-door restaurant where our breakfast was prepared every morning: typical Cali fare, eggs in cacerole, arepas or white bread, orange juice and coffee....or the country style food that they had already started to prepare for lunch: caldo de costilla, chuleta, rice. Everything was served to the table by friendly, smiling staff.that soon learned that Hanski wanted his coffee with less milk than normal cafe con leche ...
That evening we had a lovely get-together and sampling of Caleño/vallecaucano specialties by the pool at one of my oldest and dearest Colombian friends, Piedad and Alberto and Maria Cecilia. I had been looking forward to meet my former employer Donnie Harris and his wife Maria Cristina (Maria Cecilia's cousin), but got a video message from Donnie excusing himself, he was not feeling good that day, but I never really got it what was wrong with him. His hair had turned totally white. Maria Cristina looked good, as always and I enjoyed meeting her after something like 35 years. What a great evening and re-union with the people who had been a huge part of my life in the early years in Cali and that bond of friendship that time and distance have not been able to break down. Cheers to friendship and many more meetings in those short 9 days in Cali.
Thursday
We took a taxi over to Alameda already in mid-morning because Adelaida had promised me a manicure and a pedicure before lunch. Ahhh....sheer pleasure!
That same day, after taking a short break in the afternoon at the hotel, we took a taxi to the south of the city to meet with my old friends Dora and Carmenza and their husbands at a restaurant called Obelisco that specializes in local cooking: empanadas and picadas in a great outdoorsy environment.
It rained very heavily that night and the temperatures were close to low twenties. It was a pleasant and memorable evening with a lot of catching up .
***
Friday
That day we ran a a couple of personal errands like visiting my Inmobiliaria and later the Chipichape Mall in the north of the city .In the afternoon, we took a short walk to the house in Al Lido, talked to the man who is renting it and he was relieved to khow that we were not planning to make him move right away. I had been told both by friends and Inmobiliaria staff to wait a little with the sales because the peso was on a nose dive and if I had no hurry it was preferable to wait. The house, which is old, but extremely well located is easy to sell and the renter, who has an established nursing home in it, showed much interest in buying it. I decided to give it a year or two to see how the peso is going to behave and also if my friend Piedad's prediction of Cali's brilliant future as the commercial and cultural hub of the Colombian Pacific due to the growing influence of the Asian markets, especially China and the proximity to the only decent port facility on Colombian Pacific Seaboard, Buenaventura will come true. That would hike property prices as well.
Walking back to the hotel we crossed the 5th street in Tequendama and took Carrera 42 right into my old neighbourhood. We walker around the park, the church where my children were baptized and I showed Hanski the house where we lived from 1972 to 1982. It was almost unrecognizable with so many modifications and adaptations to commercial activity the subsequent owners had made. At one point it had been a dental clinic; now I think there was some kind of store. We walked around the block and from the back it was totally changed: the whole building where the school had been located had been torn down and a three storey high building stood there. They had some kind of business activity there too: two men sat outside and gave us their business cards and invited us to come in a meeting to get acquainted with their business idea. The Tequendama of wealthy families, children playing in the park, men sitting outside talking to neighbors, maids sweeping the front of the houses, front yards, gardens, ladies walking their dogs was no more. Commercial, health care-related businesses had taken over the whole barrio. At night, it was lonely and almost scary to walk in that area.
***
Saturday
We had lunch at Chipichape Mall with Woody and Susan. They showed us to a restaurant on the second floor with great steaks and good, quiet ambience. Afterwards, we took taxi to their house in the Bosque and spent some quality time with them. I wished we had had a chance to get together again before we left, but days were passing by really fast and I knew it was going to be difficult. We also met some other gringos at the mall; it looks like the local expat hangout. Memories from the long-gone days when Cali was full of young Americans, Vietnam War draft dodgers, Peace Corps volunteers, hippies, English teachers and any combination of the previous categories....now they were getting a bit long in the tooth, just like myself :) And just a few of us left who still hang out in Cali...just a handful.
Later that day we took a taxi to Cosmocentro and did some jewelry shopping at Plateria Ramirez.
In the evening we walked to Nueva Tequendama and had some great champus (a combination of fruit salad and a drink with sweet corn and molasses, lots of lulo and pineapple, only second to the one Clelia makes with Alfredo, Lucia and the Labbe ladies. We didn't speak politics ;) Alyna Maria drove us home afterwards.
***
Sunday
Time to pay a visit to them who had gone before us had come. I booked Diana and the van and we drove first to Galeria Alameda to get some fresh flowers to take to the graves of my in-laws and my late husband at Cementerio Metropolitano del Sur. A visit to my dear friend Lilian's last resting place in the ossary she shares with her parents at Jardines de la Aurora was also planned. She had succumbed to uterian cancer just a month before our arrival. We picked up the flowers first and while I waited, the vendor lady made three nice arrangements for the graves from the flowers I had bought.
This is for you Lili of my soul:
As above
That evening, exhausted both emotionally and physically, I took a long siesta at the hotel and we walked to a nearby restaurant for a late dinner.
***
Monday
Silvia (see the previous blog entry with full account)
That evening we went to Arnold and Carmen, the other ex-brother-in-law where we had been invited for dinner. (The two brothers don't speak to each other so the two sides of my late husbands family must be visited separately) Arnold has started to look like my ex-father-in-law too, just a bit fairer of skin and hair. They both looked well enough. Juan Manuel was there too, Anita and Marco and even Sofia, the niece who had been living with them. She was supposed to have travelled to New York to stay at her mother's, Carolina and her fiancé , but had been stopped at the airport due to a problem with her documentation. Minors are not allowed to leave the country without a written authorization of both parents (in case they travel alone) and hers had already expired. The problem was already fixed and she had booked a flight next day; she said she hadn't wanted to travel before meeting us. (She left in a taxi later that evening to sleep over at one of Carolina's friend's house; she was to drive her to the airport next morning, but had to return later to pick up her cel phone she had forgotten. I was one of those who was adamant of NOT letting her to travel without a phone or a way of communicating with her mother.)
Lots of catching up that evening; we spoke of family and our children, looked at photos, Arnold's paintings, Sofia's origami.The doe-eyed, quiet young girl kept occupying my mind long afterwards.
The Bretaña house that Arnold had bought after selling their house in San Fernando looked like a copy of my in-law's house and indeed, most of the decorations there looked like something that my mother-in-law Cecilia had in her living room. The living room and the dining room were jammed with porcelain figurines, paintings, crystal vases and the staircase upstairs was a photo gallery with all the kids and even our branch of the family was present.
I think Arnold and Carmen are feeling lonely and sad because all their daughters live far away and now even Sofia, the niece that they have helped to raise up and who had lived with them since she was a little girl had now left. Well, That's life. They will be back and meanwhile, I think they'll be fine enjoying the peace and tranquility of their old age.
***
Tuesday and Wednesday
These two last days in Cali were spent doing last-minute shopping at various malls, especially Cosmocentro and Jardin Plaza. While in Jardin Plaza, we had lunch with Julieta and her husband; it was a short time together but filled with warmth and pleasant conversation.
We went back to the San Fernando House to say goodbye to Hugo and Graciela; they were flying back to Chicago too the following week. We made some preliminary plans to visit them in Chicago on the same trip we're planning to take to visit Rauli and Marilyn in Salt Lake City. I would have liked to spend more time with them too, also this time.
We went back to the Bretaña house to take farewell of Anita and Marco who were traveling the next day and Carmen, Arnold and Juan Manuel and his Gf Sandra.
Wednesday night they had Holy Week processions on the Roosevelt. We met up with Adelaida and Clelia in Alameda and walked to the municipal Library Complex at the beginning of the street where the groups assembled and the bands were standing in formation ready to start playing.I was thinking about our bunny rabbits, chickens and painted eggs, tinted feathers....what chance they have against the deep devotion, passion of Christ and flogging Roman soldiers, the despair of Mary Mother of God and the other two Marias.The crowds were out there, watching , with lighted candles in their hands. After the main procession with the statues representing the 12 steps of viacrucis were carried down the street the smaller procession carried out by a small-town school children took place.
Afterwards, we had a bite to eat, the famous Colombian hotdog and beers at a streetside eatery two blocks from Clelia and Adelaida's apartment.
Then, it was time to get back home, finish our packing and get some rest before the flight next morning. Miami calling, the ringing was loud and clear.
***
Thursday
The hotel people drove us to the airport with plenty of time for check-in. The airport was almost deserted of passangers; no lines, no rush, no stress. Once through the security check-point, we had a nice cup of coffee and a croissant for breakfast, charged our phones and boarded the flight to stormy Florida.
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