Heading Back Home

The hostel that Jose had found for me in Cali was all full by the time I finally made it into town. Maybe one of these days I’ll finally learn my lesson and decide to make reservations instead of just showing up places and hoping for the best, but I kinda doubt it. But they knew of another hotel pretty close by and that was that. Jose had offered to let me crash on his couch, but after the last couple weeks of hard traveling and the experience of losing my bag I was really looking forward to a place with a comfortable bed and a good shower. I found both without too much of a problem.

I was hoping to spend my next two days exploring Cali before heading out to Medellin. But instead I spent most of my free time aimlessly walking around like I like to do and buying clothes. I had forgotten how much I detested spending time in malls but since I only had the clothes on my back there really weren’t many other options.

After Jose got off work he and “La Duena de su Corazon” took me out and showed me around Cali. We spent a while getting caught up and I told him what I had been up to since we parted ways in Rio. I told him all my favorite stories of places I had been and things I had seen, I do love telling a good story after all. While we were out Bill, my crazy gringo role-model, called me and let me know he had everything under control in Medellin and would have a place for me to stay all lined up. This was actually an issue because I was planning on showing up in Medellin on the Friday of the Feria de Flores, the biggest party in all of Colombia, and hotel rooms were not easy to come by.

As I sat and reveled in this great news I marveled at how nice it was to have friends you can count on. It’s especially cool to have friends you can count on who live in really cool places in the world and are more than willing to lend you a hand and get you straightened out. I’ve managed to make it through the last 8 months or so by depending on the kindness of strangers and the folks I know and love alike, and I’ve only occasionally been disappointed.

I didn’t really know what I was going to be doing in Medellin or how long I was going to stay. The stop in Cali was really just an excuse to drop in a on a friend and break up the bus ride all they way from Quito. But I was looking forward to seeing Bill again and collecting the $200 he owed me. And well there were some loose ends that needed tying up there as well. I decided a while ago that Medellin is my favorite city in the entire world. All it lacks is a beach and good cheap food, although the availability of good fresh fruit is second only to Brazil.

Bill and I had been trading e-mail over the last several months about working together on some projects while we were together in Medellin. Bill seemed bored of just hanging out and was looking for something to challenge him and I was starting to suffer from not feeling productive. And Colombia seemed to provide the perfect opportunity to setup a business dealing with exporting goods into the United States, especially with the Free Trade agreement that was getting ready to be ratified by the two governments. Lots of ideas and no one to report to but ourselves, I wonder what kind of trouble the two of us can manage to get into.