Day 68, 69 and 70 - Parque del Perro, Zoo Cali and Parque del Gato

Day 68 - Monday 28.11.2022
Exploring Cali

Today we wanted to get out a bit and so we set off after breakfast to find Parque del Perro (Dog Park). It went up and down and we agreed that the similarity of the road inclines to San Francisco is undeniable. After a 40-minute walk, we arrived at the dog park. However, we were not very enthusiastic because there was hardly anything more than a dog statue and a few seats in a small park. After that, we continued our walk to Inglesia de San Antonio. The church is located on a small hill in the neighborhood of the same name and from there you have a great view of the skyline. After enjoying the view for a short time, a heavy rain shower forced us under the protective canopy of the church. Our original plan was to also visit Parque del Gato, but the rain washed away that idea. We decided to start our way back. On the way home, we had to overcome some smaller floods, which was not a problem for our athletic bodies. When we arrived home, we freshened up and prepared a world-class dinner for ourselves.

Day 69 - Tuesday 29.11.2022
Cali Zoo and Parque del Gato

Today was a highlight of our visit to Cali, we went to the zoo! We both love animals and were very excited to see what this zoo has to offer. A 10-minute Uber ride and we were already standing in front of the highly praised animal sanctuary. At the entrance, there were about 200 Colombian children and teenagers who were probably on a school trip here. The noise level was comparable to an Austrian techno party and we exchanged a slightly mischievous look - once again a great day for such a trip. Nevertheless, we dared to walk through the very natural enclosures. We tried to distance ourselves a little from the screaming crowd, which we only succeeded in after a while, as another group of schoolchildren kept coming. It felt like we were surrounded by excited screaming brats. The accompanying persons, probably mainly school educators, also seemed to be little concerned that the noise level exceeded 100 decibels. When we finally had a little peace, we could also enjoy the incredibly diverse animal diversity of the zoo. In addition to lemurs, big cats, and reptiles, the tiger enclosure was one of our must-sees. The zoo is home to one of the rare white tigers. We could hardly get enough of this extraordinary creature. The noble animal made its rounds in the enclosure as if it were hosting the 1:00 p.m. show. Every now and then, it let out a threatening roar or jumped towards the shop window to scare the amazed children there. It was breathtaking. It wasn't until the tiger lay down and went to sleep that we continued on our way.
Manfred was in the bathroom when a few Colombian men asked Anna where she was from. Her answer, of course, was 'Austria'. One of the men thought for a moment and revised it with a simple 'Ah, Hitler', which surprised us. Although Austrians do not like to be associated with this person, in certain countries it is still a very present name associated with our home country. Anna's response to this was a shameful 'Yes, unfortunately'.
Our tour lasted almost 5 hours but was very relaxing and interesting - highly recommended.
We walked home as we wanted to stroll past Parque del Gato. This one was definitely more worth seeing than the park from the day before. There were at least 20 different cat statues here, each representing a facet of the city and created by different artists. Unfortunately, our Spanish was too weak to understand the explanatory signs next to them.
We strolled through the authentic city a little more before heading home.

Day 70 - Wednesday 30.11.2022
Another day to take care of organizational matters

We spent most of November 30th on the computer or at the mall. We still had some things to organize and plan. We also got some things that we would need for the rest of our trip.