The Martin's Blog

6/13 – We arrived home from the Virgin Islands at 11pm on 6/11 and had to be at the Dayton airport at 8am for our flight to Newark and then Bogota Colombia.  Sooo, we had 33 hours for sleeping (2 nights), laundry, paying bills, doing yard work, etc. before leaving.  There was nasty weather all day and both of our flights were delayed.  We finally arrived in Bogota at 1:30am on 6/14 and had to make our way from the airport to the Marriott.  We hooked up with another American, took a taxi and got there at 2am.  We and our bags had to be scanned and sniffed (dog) before entering the hotel.  That was standard procedure wherever we traveled.   Slept 3 hours and left for the airport at 6:30am for our flight to Cali.

6/14 – Our Avianca flight arrived in Cali at 9am.  Manuel and Silvana were there to meet us at the airport and drive us into Cali.  Manuel is from the Canary Islands.  His sister Carmen lived with us during the summer of 1987 and he came to the U.S. in 1992 and did an extensive tour with us to the Southwestern US.   We were in the Canary Islands in 2003 and he visited us again for Thanksgiving in 2008.  We told him way back when, that when he got married, we would be there!

We checked into the Dann Carlton Hotel and immediately left for a pre-arranged tour of Hacienda El Paraiso about an hour outside of Cali.  This is a historical/fictitious location that is used for a Colombian TV series.

The tour was in Spanish and we were told a bit boring but the Hacienda and countryside were beautiful.

Afterward we had lunch at a local restaurant.  Helen had fresh trout.  I had a chicken tamale and we both shared – delicious!

6/15 – We found an English speaking taxi driver (Jorge) and took a tour of Cali in the morning

Cali from Cerro de los Cristales (The Hill of Crystals) –

There is a large statue of Christ on top.  We could see it from our hotel.

Carmen accompanied us on a taxi tour of Cali

Sculpture depicting the history of Colombia

Spanish explorer overlooking Cali

Chicago has cows, Cincinnati has pigs and Cali has cats!

Metropolitan Cathedral (1841)

Iglesia de la Merced (The Church of Grace), Cali’s oldest church, 1680.  It is on the site where Cali’s founders celebrated their first religious service in 1536.

It is common for statues in churches to be dressed

Leaving the hotel for wedding

Wedding chapel at Hacienda Las Manaitas

The ring

Manuel, Silvana and parents

Carmen

Elegant setting

Appetizers, three course dinner and desserts

First course – shrimp with sauce and fried banana

First dance – salsa!

At 11pm a carnival group arrived and really revved up the party!

Helen dancing with the devil!

Dads

6/16 – We had a late breakfast and about noon traveled outside the city to Tinajeros and the La Tinaja Restaurante Bar.  This is a cattle ranch where they have a huge under roof open area with picnic tables, stage, dance floor and bar.  In the center is a runway where they parade horses on the hour.

I thought the column of beer was interesting

This was called “Baby Beef” – nothing small about it!

They even had Happy Meals!

Horse show –

Singer and mariachi band from Acapulco Mexico – he rode in on a horse!

Valle de Cauca between coast and middle mountain ranges

We had an evening flight to Bogota and again stayed overnight at the Marriott

6/17 – We took the shuttle to the airport at 6:30am and arrived in Newark about at 3:30pm.  Glad to be back in the USA, note passport torch!  However, we had plane problems and did not get home until 2am the next day!