The hike up to Tres Cruces

One cool thing about Cali is that everywhere you go, you can see MOUNTAINS either to your right or left side. These mountains are very beautiful, very big, and very green. But, if you look closely at the top of the mountains (almost at any point in Cali), you can spot the 3 small crosses at the very top, aka TRES CRUCES. Tres Cruces is a popular hiking spot that gives a great overlook of the city of Cali. On a normal weekday and weekend, Calenos will hike up to Tres Cruces 6am and are sitting at work by about 9am. So hiking up Tres Cruces is a pretty typical part of life for Calenos here. Because I found out how popular Tres Cruces was for a good hike, I decided to go up with a few friends. Just to be safe, we also went up with 2 dogs which protected us the whole way through!

 Here are some pics of the way up to Tres Cruces and the way down from Tres Cruces:

 The picture above was taken when we first arrived to the site of Tres Cruces. Although not pictured here, there were plenty of fruit vendors at the site selling FRESH FRUIT DRINKS. It was exactly what I needed after a long hike. I particularly had a typical Colombian fruit drink called SALPICON (with real fruit chunks inside of pineapple, mango, melon, banana, papaya, etc. etc. etc.) It was absoultely DELICIOUS!

The pics here were taken on the way back down from Tres Cruces, where you could see Cali from afar. By this time, the sun had come out and gave us some good company...also making for nice and bright pictures with plenty of light :).

Starting our way up to Tres Cruces at 7am, and going for a 1.5 hour hike up to Tres Cruces and a 2.5 hour hike back down from Tres Cruces, we had finally finished the hike! Although the total hike should have averaged about 2 hours, we were just happy to have completed the Tres Cruces CHALLENGE.

A little town called Popayan

For a long time, people in Cali told me that I should go visit POPAYAN- a beautiful, calm little town about 2 hours outside of Cali that maintains a very colonial feel to it. After hearing this, I decided to take a day trip with a friend to check Popayan out. When arriving there, I was caught by the white colonial style buildings, the narrow streets of the town, the nice green gardens nearby, as well as the coffee shops that were found on every other corner of the town.

Here are a few of the pics I took when I arrived in Popayan:

After walking around Popayan for a while, we found out about a NEARBY HILL that supposedly had an excellent OVERLOOK of the town. So, as expected, my friend and I found exactly where this hill was and made our way right on up. When we found the hill and climbed up to the top, the view could not have been better, as there was a picture-perfect SUNSET setting over the town at that moment. Here are some pics:

In the end, I was so glad I was able to visit Popayan- a colonial Colombian town, where you could just walk around nice colonial streets, take great pics of the town at sunset, and drink coffee at one of the many coffee shops found at nearty every corner of the town. Would I repeat this trip? FOR SURE.