Colombia - The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget - page 544

5

11.30am; 20min; COP$3000 one-way).
They return when full at around 3 or
4pm. Jeeps can also be hired for
COP$24,000 one-way.

brought to work the sugar mills left
a notable impact on Cali's culture,
nowhere more so than in its music.
Parts of central Cali are unsafe to walk
around; be sure to get up-to-date advice
on where not to go.

The southwest
Leaving the snowy white caps of the
“Coffee Zone” behind, the Cauca River
Valley descends south and widens until
you reach Cali , gateway to Colombia's
southwest and the self-proclaimed world
capital of salsa music. A knuckle-
whitening detour from Cali takes you to
the tiny town of San Cipriano . Further
south, the Panamerican Highway
stretches past steamy fields of sugar cane
to the serene, colonial town of Popayán ,
known for its blindingly white Rococo
colonial architecture. The verdant rolling
countryside around San Agustín is some
of Colombia's finest, and would be worth
a visit even without the enigmatic stone
statues - remnants of a mysterious
civilization - that pepper the hillsides.
Tierradentro 's ancient tombs are less well
known but no less fascinating. Heading
further south from the overlooked town
of Pasto , you ascend a ridge dominated
by volcanoes all the way to Ecuador.

WHAT TO SEE AND DO
The city stakes a powerful claim to being
Colombia's party capital, and you'll hear
Cuban-style salsa music blaring from the
numerous salsatecas throughout the day
and night. If you're here in September,
don't miss the Festival Mundial de Salsa.

Plaza de Caycedo and around
The city's centre is Plaza de Caycedo ,
which has a statue of independence hero
Joaquín de Caycedo y Cuero in the
middle. On the plaza's south end is the
nineteenth-century Catedral San Pedro ,
with its elaborate stained-glass windows.

Iglesia de la Merced
The oldest church in the city is the Iglesia
de la Merced , on the corner of Cra 4 and
C 7, built from adobe and stone shortly
after the city's founding. In the adjoining
former convent - Cali's oldest building
- is the Museo Arqueológico la Merced
(Mon-Sat 9am-1pm & 2-6pm;
COP$4000), which has displays of
pre-Columbian pottery including
funerary urns and religious objects
unearthed throughout central and
southern Colombia.

CALI
Colombia's third-largest city, with a
population of 2.3 million, CALI was
founded in 1536 but only shed its
provincial backwater status in the
early 1900s, when the profits brought
in by its sugar plantations prompted
industrialization. Today it's one of
Colombia's most prosperous cities,
in part because of its central role in the
drug trade since the dismantling of the
rival Medellín cartel in the early 1990s;
however, Cali is now more famous for its
salsa dancers than white powder.
The low-lying and extremely hot city
(with temperatures routinely surpassing
40°C) straddles the Río Cali , a tributary of
the Río Cauca, surrounded by the sugar
plantations of the marshy Cauca Valley.
The large numbers of African slaves

Museo del Oro
This small museum at C 7 No. 4-69
(Mon-Sat 10am-5pm; free) has a
well-presented collection of gold and
ceramics from the Calima culture from
the region northwest of Cali.

Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia
Cali's Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia
(Av Colombia No. 5-105 Oeste;
Tues-Sun 10am-6pm; COP$4000;
W

museolatertulia.com) shows changing
exhibitions of contemporary photography,
sculpture and painting, sometimes
featuring high-profile international
names, as well as arthouse film screenings
in the adjoining cinemateca . Walk along