Journey:

This journey was supposed to be 8 hours. It ended up being about 11 hours. (All Colombian buses seem to take at least an extra 2 hours than they say – they do like to stop a lot for snacks.) The bus was a little less luxurious than our one from Lorica to Medellin, but equally was less expensive at 45,000 COP and only an extra 20,000 for the surfboard.

Accommodation:

La Surcusal hostel. A really nice hostel located in the north of Cali. For some reason they had no record of our booking but luckily had spare rooms anyway. The manager was very friendly and recommended things for us to do (unlike the rude staff of Medellin.) Also, there was a free salsa lesson which Thomas persuaded me to try (much to my horror being a very uncoordinated, fall over my own feet, sort of person.)

Sights/activities:

Salsa dancing class

Salsa is really hard. Even a ‘basic’ step takes about half an hour to grasp. Also, there’s lots of spinning and after a while this makes you feel really dizzy. However, even though I was very nervous to try and we hadn’t quite mastered the moves by the end of the lesson it was still really fun. Warning: Cali is the capital of salsa in Colombia and so everyone is exceptionally good here.

Parque Artesanias Loma de la Cruz

Thomas, as well as being an obsessive surfer, also has an addiction to shopping. Therefore, in Cali he took the opportunity to buy a lot of presents for family, friends and himself (he’s a lot nicer to his family and friends than me.)

We went to an area called Parque Artesanias where there were lots of tourist market stalls in order for Thomas to get his shopping fix. We then had the struggle of finding a DHL in Cali (the taxi driver had to ask about 20 people for directions) and then posting a very expensive package to France.

San Antonio

This was the prettiest area in Cali. Beforehand, I had been a little disappointed in Cali as it was a bit grimy, but after visiting here it changed my opinion drastically. The houses were traditionally bright and colourful, there were lots of arty looking cafes everywhere (that were pretty expensive mind) and a park with a church sitting atop the hill giving excellent views over the city. If I was going to live in Cali it would be here (but I probably couldn’t afford it.)

Food:

We aimed to go on a Street Food Tour in Cali and set off early to get there for 11am. Unfortunately, we had stupidly forgotten to charge Thomas’ phone (or take another kind of map) so the phone ran out of battery, thus we had no map anymore, so wandered aimlessly around trying to find the right hostel where the tour left from. We never found it and our Spanish was too poor for people to understand what we were looking for. I bet this would have been a good tour if we’d found it and everything so you know if anyone goes there let me know what we missed.

Instead, we had a typical Colombian meal for lunch. We’ve worked out a typical meal normally consists of chicken or beef, rice, salad, chips and plantain (and also often came with soup as a starter.) It’s definitely filling and we’ve found eating at these areas to be a whole lot cheaper than going to the tourist restaurants. (You can get this type of food for maybe 10,000 COP each, and that normally includes a drink, whereas if you go to a tourist area they will charge you at least 20,000 COP for a main course.) Also note: Colombian burgers are pretty good too and cheap.

Drinks:

After our salsa lesson a few people from the hostel were going to go out for some drinks, so we went with them to somewhere I cannot remember the name of. This was a salsa club and everyone was very good at salsa. It was fun to watch but not to participate (I think we need a few, or a lot, more lessons first.)

Before coming here we stopped at an R&B club which was completely empty (but means they gave the girls free drinks to try and keep us there – with cherries in – ooooh.) Basically music that is popular in western countries is definitely not popular over here. Salsa is the only thing they are interested in, and fair enough, they’re amazing at it.

Summary:

We didn’t have very long in Cali but it’s not too necessary here as there aren’t too many tourist sites. It doesn’t cater to tourists in the same way some of the other Colombian cities do, but there are some beautiful areas and it’s THE place to go for salsa. Definitely the salsa lesson was my favourite thing we did here, it’s very different and makes you appreciate how hard it really is when you’re watching them!