Couch Surfing in Colombia Continues to be amazing...

Besides the people I've already written about, there are more! In Korea, I met literally almost all of my friends in the same salsa club. In Colombia, I've met almost all of my friends through Couch Surfing!

There was a two-night period that I had to leave my friend Angie's house because her parents were coming and they don't know (and wouldn't appreciate the fact) that she hosts Couch Surfers. I ended up going to stay with a girl named Liliana who I, again, fell in love with right from the moment we met. She's a Respiratory Therapist and she is also involved in social work, has dreams of traveling and is planning to soon start a Masters abroad. Not only that, but she is an amazing salsa dancer and cook!

Liliana & I eating some of the incredible food that she cooked us!

Besides being generous enough to let me stay in her house for two nights, she cooked for me and spent lots of time talking to and hanging out with me and then, when my dumbass lost Angie's house keys on the third night we went out dancing together, she let me sleep in her house again. In the 72 hours I spent at her house, I think we were out dancing for about 40 of them and it was amazing!

Out to eat after another full day of dancing--we actually ordered
two complete dinners each that night bc we were so starving
after all that dancing!

In the daytime during my stay in Cali, Angie had to study, Liliana had to work and so did everyone else I knew so I was pretty much on my own. So what did I do? I decided to try out the Couchsurfing Hangout app.

You set your status as "available" and let people know what you're interested in doing (i.e. grabbing a coffee or food, exploring the area, going hiking, etc...). Then you can see the other people in the area who are interested in hanging out and doing the same thing as you, both foreigners and locals, and you can make plans to meet up! I did it a few times in both Cali and Medellin and it was great! Two of the guys that I met were particularly awesome.

One guy, Juan David, and I went to get some coffee and sat in one of the parks I hadn't been to yet to chat. We rode his motorcycle (super fun but also really chill since I made him drive slowly lol) to get there and then talked for a few hours. He's really smart and I learned a lot from him talking about his network marketing business he's working on. He's planning to save up for a while and then he and his girlfriend want to travel all of Latin America on his motorcycle!

Alejandro was another awesome guy I met. The first day, he and I and another girl from the Hangout app met up to get cholados and then a few days later he took me to his dad's farm outside of Cali and it was incredible! We went with another friend of his who was super nice as well. First we went to the Pance River and then he took us to the farm.

cholado - a typical food from Cali made with fresh
fruit and they put fruit syrup, ice cream & dulce de
leche in it if you want, too!

Río Pance

The houses (his dad lives there and so do a few other relatives) were enormous--I'm talking two floors and three or four bedrooms per person--and the view was magnificent. They had food of every kind growing there and we walked around eating different kinds of fruits off the trees. We even got to help get mangoes down out of the trees with a giant stick (which I had way too much fun with) and then his dad gave them to us to take home!

the view

me knocking mangoes out of the trees

A few days later, Alejandro drove me up to the Cristo Rey (giant Christ statue on top of a mountain--think Rio but smaller) although it turned into a pretty hilarious adventure. About halfway up the mountain, he realized the car was out of gas so we turned around and literally coasted back down the entire mountain, all the way to a gas station. We were laughing the whole way but there were really times that we weren't sure if we'd make it (you never know what the traffic lights will turn red). After all that, we drove back up the mountain and finally saw the view.

and it was awesome!

Then, finding myself in the capital once again, I met up with Laura, my first friend I met in Colombia and we went out salsa dancing once again but this time as a whole new group of couch surfers!

Six couch-surfers from three different countries in a party-sized Uber
van on our way to dance salsa!

For anyone who hasn't tried the Hangout app on CouchSurfing yet (whether you yourself are a traveler or not and no matter where you are in the world), I totally recommend it! There are so many amazing people to meet and, if your'e in your own country, you can share it with someone else and get the chance to see it with fresh eyes. :D