Cali - the capital of Salsa

Cali city

Cali city is known mainly for being the centre of salsa dancing in Colombia and, due to my two left feet, I was unable to indulge to heavily in the city's favourite pastime. And thankfully no video exists of my horrendous attempts to salsa.

However, the city also has a lot to offer for sightseeing as well. There is a teleferico from which you can see all of the city.

Cali from the teleferico

As well as beautiful views from the statue of Christo Rey.

Christo Rey

Cali city

Another view of the city

And a beautiful place for sunset too

Sunset over the hills behind Cali

The city itself is fairly modern, without the historic centre of many other cities, however it's main boulevard is an excellent place for a quiet beer at night - many of the locals come down to the boulevard to socialise.

The boulevard

Cali Cathedral

Also worth seeing in Cali is the park of cats - a park filled with interesting cat sculptures.

The entrance to the cat park

A cat sculpture

Just outside of Cali is the Museo de caña, a museum documenting the areas sugar growing history. The colonial house was also the setting for a Colombian telenovela - so there's lots of information about that too :/

A carriage in the stables of the mansion

The mansion gardens

The weather in Cali is often very hot and humid and unfortunately the coastal area is somewhat dangerous - so locals often go to the river in the little town of San Cipriano to cool off on the weekend. You can take a bus to Córdoba and from there you use the very innovative transport system to San Cipriano.

My transport to San Cipriano

Basically there are no roads to San Cipriano, so the locals use an abandoned train line to drive platforms hooked up to motorbikes to transport people to San Cipriano.

Traveling to San Cipriano

The town itself is tiny, but there are several restaurants with excellent cheap seafood dishes to eat (it's quite close to the coast)

The Main (and only) street of San Cipriano

and many trails to the river where you can swim to escape the heat

Swimming in the river

before heading back to Cali for a night of dancing - or in my case, watching others dance and trying to avoid being a total gringo on the dancefloor.