Cali – The city of eternal Summer.

While it may seem like Cali is the last stop on my trip, which is true, I actually passed through Cali a few times during the trip. Cali is a very special place, most visitors either fall in love with it and come back again and again or never really see why it’s so special and move on quickly or skip it entirely.

Cali is a city with around 3 million inhabitants, lots of hills and self proclaimed as the world’s salsa capital. But it’s also Colombia’s 3rd poorest city and hence one of the highest in crime. Although this used to be much much worse, during the drug cartel wars of the 90s. Nowadays most crimes are muggings or pick-pocketing, which can be avoided by not walking around the streets at night and if you do, then without valuables. And it’s likely to happen to locals just as much as tourists, the criminals, who usually are on motorcycle, don’t discriminate here. This also led the government to enforce a two new rules for motorcycles in Cali, to help minimize these robberies.

Only one male rider is allowed per motorcycle at any time.
No motorcycles at all are allowed on the streets after 1 am.

The surprising thing was to see these two rules enforced and for the most part actually respected by the locals as well. It’s normal to see people leaving a party or gathering early, because they came with a motorcycle and want to get home before the curfew.

And that’s actually what makes Cali quite special. The people of Cali. Seeing them go about their days in different contexts, whether it’s meeting friends at the park for Christmas eve, dancing on the streets during the salsa Feria, watching a stand up comedian in an open air amphitheater or selling Guarape on the streets. There is a lot of creative energy here in Cali and people seem to work hard and play hard.

I stayed in a more upscale neighborhood called San Antonio with lots of hostels, small boutiques, alternative restaurants and the most expats. It also features a great park, where you can watch the locals hang out night o in the park’s open air amphitheater. Open air is another buzzword for Cali, as most of the houses here have are actually open air! There is a roof and a few walls, but then open walls or huge open windows towards the courtyard in the middle or the terrace. The weather here is mostly warm all year round but also a little windy, that living in the open air is very comfortable all year long! It was one of my favorite things about Cali, and although it rains heavily sometimes, which is actually their main source of water, the weather never gets too cold. With average temperatures of 30 degrees celsius during the day and 19 at night, it really is the city of eternal summer.

Another thing common between almost all the houses in Cali are the iron window bars they put on all their windows to prevent robbery’s. I assume that it’s a trend from a few decades ago, when there was more violence and crime in the city, but I found them very special to the city of Cali. Especially because they don’t just use straight iron bars like in a prison, but they really play with them and use them as decorative elements, as you’ll see later in the photos below.

But what Cali is probably most famous for is Salsa dancing and Salsa music. Some of the biggest salsa bands come from Cali and a lot of the most famous salsa songs talk about Cali. Salsa is part of everyone’s dance repertoire here. Some better than others, and while most people can’t really dance complicated figures like in Germany, they make up for it by really feeling and living the music like no one else I’ve seen. The Cali Salsa festival or Feria is probably the biggest celebration in the city. Bigger than Christmas, Halloween and New Year’s combined!

I didn’t really see how big Salsa in Cali was until I saw what it was like during the Feria, which features a huge parade on December 25th (Yes, christmas day!) to kicks off the 3-4 day festival. The parade hast some huge sponsor floats (mainly beer companies) and some smaller salsa school floats followed by dancers from each school (like the Olympic opening ceremony). But the real attraction of the parade are the spectators and their dancing on the streets as they wait for the parade to begin and spray each other with foam sprayers. It’s really fun to watch and be part of such a passionate crowd, especially when their favorite Salsa song comes on, which talks about their city; Cali Pachanguero. During these Feria days you can find live salsa music parties all over the city and all of them are packed with people and a usually sold out “Super Concert”, with some of the biggest salsa singers. We went to one party during the Feria and after waiting for almost 2 hrs in the line to get in STILL found people to buy all 10 of our tickets, knowing full well that they would probably have to wait another 2 hrs in line!

After selling our tickets, we headed to my favorite Salsa club in Cali; “El Rincon de la Salsa”. This started as a small bar, where the owner Don Ever used to play his favorite tracks. After a while some students convinced him to put in a dance floor and now it’s become a salsa club that spreads out on the wide sidewalk in front of it. Again making use of Cali’s great weather all year round.

Finally, I can’t talk about Cali without mentioning my favorite drink on this trip; Guarape. This magically refreshing drink is sugar cane juice mixed with lemon juice. Now I know sugar cane juice from Egypt and other cities in Latin America, but adding lemon juice to it breaks the sweetness perfectly and makes it so much more refreshing. I could drink 3-4 of these everyday!

There is a lot more I could say about Cali and even more that I didn’t have a chance to discover as it’s not a very touristic city and so it’s attractions are not served on a silver platter yet. But that was also it’s charm for me. The longer you stayed, the more you discovered about what it has to offer, like the Rembrandt Exhibit that was there for example, free movie nights at one of the restaurants in San Antonio, the folkloric performances at the artesian market, the free dance shows at one of the most famous hostels in Cali or the hike to the Jesus statue at the top of one of it’s largest hills or 18 km outside Cali.

There was just so much to discover and I am glad to have spent so much time in Cali, not just for all the experiences I had here but more importantly for the people I spent time with here. It will not be forgotten and was definitely the best way to end my trip and go back to Germany with more inspiration and energy to start my own project.