We left Kansas City on Sunday, June 14, at 6 p.m. After a four-hour layover in Houston, we were on our way to Bogota. We didn’t get much sleep on the five-hour flight, so when we arrived, we were pretty wired.
It was 5 a.m., so the Bogota airport wasn’t busy. We made our way through customs quickly, then collected our bags. I remember thinking, "I expected the airport to be bigger."
Our Children’s Hope local contact, Andres, met us shortly thereafter. What a nice guy. He took us to the ticketing counter to buy our in-country tickets from Bogota to Cali. It was our first real test of understanding Spanish, and it was easier than I expected. We understood what Andres was asking for and the directions he was giving.
We got our tickets, and Andres, seeing the huge check-in line, sprung into action. “Tiene Pesos?” he asked. “Si,” I said. I had exchanged dollars for pesos in Houston.
He said there was another airport 5 minutes away we could fly out of, so we jumped in a taxi and went there. And sure enough, no line. He showed us to our gate, called our local contact in Cali, and then he was on his way. It was all very, very smooth, and I appreciate how organized Children’s Hope and Lucia, the local CHI manager in Colombia, was.
We waited a couple of hours for our flight on Avianca, a very nice Colombian airline, and then it was a short half-hour flight to Cali.
When we arrived in Cali, we got our bags, and then waited for our local contact to show up. After a bit, a spry, cute, gray-haired lady found us. “Bienvenidos a Cali,” she said (welcome to Cali!). Her name is Renya, and she’s the owner of the Bed & Breakfast-lunch-dinner we’re staying at (we get three meals a day provided).
The weather in Cali is much different than it is in Bogota. Bogota is cool and dry; Cali is hot and sticky. So I immediately began to sweat.
Renya drove us in her Toyota pick-up from the airport, which is on the north end of the city, through downtown, to her home in the south-central part of town.
Two things were immediately evident: 1) the northern part of the city – at least the part we drove through – was poor; and 2) Cali drivers are crazy!
Renya owns a two-story, row-home. It’s probably 3,000 square feet with four bedrooms on the main floor, a very nice living-room area, a small office, kitchen and kitchen-sitting area. It’s long and narrow. Her parents live upstairs.
Each room is about 14’ X 14’ with closet space and a tiny bathroom with shower. I can sit on the pot and spit in the sink. ;-)
Parts of the home are exposed to the outside, so it’s like being indoors and outdoors at the same time! Because the weather is so warm, this is typical. It’s very neat.
We were exhausted, so we ate lunch, then slept the whole afternoon. That evening, after dinner, we went to bed early.
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