Cali with Carlos

Well I safely made it into Colombia. I didn't get arrested for carrying drugs for anyone. (Not that I did carry drugs for anyone. Nor did anyone ask me.) I've not been kidnapped by armed guerrillas. I'm safely installed in Carlos's house in Palmira, a town near Calí, one of Colombia's principal cities in the south west of the country. And they're not drug barons, or guerrilla-harbourers. As far as I can tell so far. They're very nice people.

I managed to come at about the worst possible time though. I arrived Friday evening, and Carlos's grandad died at lunchtime on Saturday. The entire (in true Latino style, large) family descended on the house that afternoon for the wake. It was a little awkward, to say the least. And the awkwardness was compounded by the fact that they all seemed to be under the impression that I was Carlos's French (?!) girlfriend. It would have been tricky had they all been English, but with the language barrier...difficult.

The funeral was on Sunday, and poor Carlos didn't have a clue what to do with me so he gave me to one of his best friends, Andrés. I felt a bit bad that he was lumbered with some foreign girl he didn't know and had to speak really slowly to. Introductions to his family and friends were interesting. "This is Lucy, no she's not my girlfriend, she's a friend of a friend from England, but my friend's not here..." Andrés was great though. We wandered round Palmira, sampled some of the local fruits, showed me his photos of his experience as a missionary in remoter parts of Colombia (he happens to be a born-again Mormon), and then he made me a CD of Latin music that I'd been hearing over the last 7 months to take home.

By yesterday morning (Monday), the resident family was back down to normal (for Colombia) size: Mum, Dad, brother and sister, crazy but lovely Grandma, three aunts and an uncle. They're all really lovely and are making me feel at home (from home). And Carlos is now free(r) to do more touristy things. We've been into Calí round the posh modern shopping centres, to a fancy part of the city with open air restaurants and to the bohemian cuarter further up in the hills with amazing views of the city lights at night. I've sampled Colombian coffee, in Colombia (a rarity). Yesterday we went to a nature reserve in the mountains that surround the valley and walked up to a viewpoint, through a forest full of a variety of fruit trees and tropical plants. The views of the valley are beautiful. A friendly local we met in the cafe at the viewpoint told us that guerrillas and paramilitaries stake their claims to alternate mountains in the area, but that now it's generally ok. We didn't find any, at least.

Today we're off to an estate in another part of the valley, where the first well-known Colombian author wrote his famous tragic love story, La Maria, apparently the Latino Romeo and Juliet. This week I'm really not sure what to do. Colombia seems amazing, there are so many places that I want to visit, I wish I had more time. How do I choose between an island just off the pacific coast with a whole variety of animals to see, one of the country's most important pre-Conquest archaological sites set in dense tropical forest, and historic colonial mountain towns? I only wish I had time to get to Cartagena, the Carribean coast with its beautiful beaches (I crave beaches), and the Ciudad Perdida (the Lost City) deep in the rainforest.

The mix of people here is much more diverse than in any other country I've visited so far. There are people of African descent, Spanish descent, and indigenous descent, and a whole mixture in between. I'm particularly enjoying the heat in Calí. After so much time up mountains and in high cities, a tropical climate is most agreeable. Not so chuffed about the mosquitoes though. They seem to love my blood.