Fenix Air Museum Cali

A fellow traveler turned us on to a museum of the air tucked away next to the Cali Airport.

Rusty was not overly impressed but after he got his invitation he dutifully followed me around.

The Colombian couple who founded this plate were fervent collectors. By the numbers there are 27 aircraft, two model railroad layouts and 4500 assorted models and 50 displays of period uniforms. It’s overwhelming but on trip advisor it has more than 600 five star ratings. Norman the manager says he gets far more foreigners than locals. Oh and don’t forget the cutlery display from airlines of the world! 

Rusty couldn’t even see the trains but he followed me there too as I watched the miniature locomotive, entranced. 

Jose Pardo, the scion of an important Cali family started this place and built it up. He died almost twenty years ago but here it still is.

And of course a representation of the critical battle of Boyacá Bridge where Simon Bomivar beat the Spanish on his way from Venezuela to capture Santa Fè de Bogotá, the capital of New Granada. All in an air museum, why not? 

Women aviators are not forgotten among the pioneers of Colombian flight. 

Manuela Castañeda got her pilot’s license in 1942 when she was 22 years old and the country’s first woman pilot. 

In a separate room there is the model train set depicting a US rail line in the 1960s transporting freight across the country. 

It took twenty years to build and includes all sorts of magical details down to a train riding hobo and explanations of the various industrial processes passed by the mainline train. 

Apparently it was also a time when people went camping! 

Norman the manager. 

Our home for the weekend. 

$12 a night with clean toilets and showers, electricity and a pool. 

I miss the US some days, I get a sort of homesickness for the familiar, our friends scattered across the country, the fun of national parks, wilderness camping and the pine forests of north Florida. It is a great journey we are on but for the first time in my life I can see the end not too far away, the shutting down, and a limited prospect of time after travel. Every day I try to make sure I see this journey as worthwhile, that we aren’t stealing time pointlessly from the few years left to us; the years we hope to have. Colombia has been interesting and worthwhile. In a few weeks we will probably be going south to Ecuador in crisis and anti-American Bolivia and Argentina in economic collapse. I hope they are worth the time to get there and to return.