Cali

Whilst we were in Manizales we decided to do some planning for the next few weeks of the trip. This was to try and work out where we would be during Samana Santa, the week of festivities in the lead up to Easter. Initially we always thought we would have gone from Manizales to Medellin and then up to the north coast. However we wanted to go to Medellin on a weekend so thought we could spend a few days somewhere else beforehand.

We discussed our options and decided either Cali or Jardin would be good places to visit next. Jardin made the most geographical sense as it is in between Manizales and Medellin on a map, however we soon discovered public ltransport to there would be quite challenging. Whereas Cali was back further Southwest where we had already been and would require a long bus journey of around 10 hours in order for us to reach Medellin.

After some discussion we decided to head to Cali, despite its reputation for being a less safe city. We booked two nights in a hostel in the safest part of the city, and hoped for the best. The worst we thought could happen was we were to get there, spend a night and find out it was a terrible idea and be on a bus or flight out of there as soon as possible.

And what a great decision it was. Although we don’t have many photos from our trip to Cali due to us not wanting to get our phones out whilst out and about due its sketchty reputation, we had a much better time then we thought we would. The hostel we stayed at had free group salsa lessons every day at 8pm followed by a happy hour at 9pm which made it super social. The first day we gave the salsa class a go, which was an interesting experience as Niamh’s rhythm was much more intact than Dom’s. After the lesson and learning the basic steps required for salsa we had a few drinks with the rest of the hostel before heading out to La Pergolia, one of the best salsa clubs in the city. Whilst there the whole dance floor was filled with people doing salsa with us getting to practice and improve our steps. One of the French boys that works at the Hostel and came out with us started to give us some pointers on how to improve.We soon looked like we just about knew what we were doing.

The next day we decided to go on a walking tour, around the city to learn more about the history of salsa and the culture of Cali. Cali as a city has the largest population of Afro Caribbean people in all of colombia which presents itself in lots of the food shops and graffiti of the city.

Along most squares in the city are sellers of street food, one of the most common things to purchase is sugar cane, a drink made from squashed canes.

As part of the city tour we saw this big trumpet installation which plays salsa music for all to here, a homage to one of the most famous salsa bands which come from Cali. You can stand under the trumpet and hear the music.

On the day before leaving Cali we spent the day exploring the San Antonio area of the city. This part of the city has much older colonial buildings and has a very hipster feel to the place. Here we explored one of the old parks and drank some great coffee and had a really yummy lunch. Cali definitely has had some of the best non Colombian food we’ve eaten so far and the value has been much better than elsewhere, probably down to the fact it’s much less touristy.

Overall , whilst a bit rough around the edges we would recommend Cali to anyone who wants to discover all of what Colombia has to offer outside of the usual backpacker route. The neighbourhood we stayed in was really up market with lots of high end eateries and shops. We have definitely felt less safe in other cities so far on our trip. Along with that I think we both would have wished we had more time in Cali so we could have taken some more Salsa lessons and actually got half decent at it.