57 kms. 24 altimeters. An easy and not very interesting day. In the big city of Cali  (2,6 mill. inhabitants) we first went to the bus terminal to find out about connections to Bogotà. It was close to the Zona Rosa, a nice barrio where we found a nice hotel. It was just north of the centre, all in walking distance. Santiago de Cali (full name) is not a place that you must see, but we spent a nice day there.

The track: Download 20100225santanderdquil_cali.gpx

Sadly we were robbed in the bus when we were boarding it the next evening. The terminal is like an airport; on the ground floor shops and restaurants and all kinds of services, on the second floor the ticket offices of the various companies that exploit bus connections all over the country, on the third and top floor the bus deck, real closed gates where you had to show your tickets before being  allowed to pass and board the buses. There a man, an employee of the company we assumed, assisted Eveline when she got on the bus and a moment after he had left we discovered that our two handle bar bags that Eveline had carried were gone. The security people, the police, the other passengers were all very upset and you could see that they hated to see the image of their country being damaged through this incident. The police and security people immediately started a search, but to no avail of course. Thieves like this one are very skilled persons. That’s also the thing that we hate the most in this, we have allowed ourselves to be cheated by his natural behaviour and we were tempted not to be alert. Of course we know that places like these are the places for such things to happen and we have several friends who have had similar experiences.

In the end they suggested us to leave for Bogotà, but I insisted on having a police statement of the incident first. This of course took some time and more than one hour later we left on a next bus for a not at all uncomfortable 12 hour ride to the capital.

Photos from Cali: from here.