Mira Ve!
Cali, Colombia
Mira ve! Ya estoy en Cali, and I couldn’t be more excited!
I just arrived a few days ago to start my second Fulbright grant and I am so happy to be here. I’ve visited the city a couple times during my first grant when I was living in Cartagena, specifically for El Festival Mundial de Salsa (The World Salsa Festival), La Feria de Cali (The Cali Fair), and for un puente (a 3-day weekend), and I had a blast each time I visited. As you likely already know by now, I fell hard for Cartagena, and loved it more than any other city that I had the opportunity to visit during my first grant, but when I came to Cali for the first time I was finally met with a competitor for my favorite city in Colombia! I’ve had phenomenal experiences in both cities, but I am excited to now have enough time to really get to know Cali well with the possibility of being able to say with confidence that I love it in its own special ways too.
Views of the mountains in the distance
What initially really drew me to Cali was the fact that it's the salsa capital of the world, but what really intrigued me once I arrived was the landscape. Cali is a huge city, but somehow it is still quite green and very much so connected to nature. It's cosmopolitan and vast, but lies in el Valle del Cauca (the Cauca Valley), so from many areas here you get impressive views of the mountain ranges that surround the city. Those mountainous areas also provide the opportunity for hiking just outside of the city. Inside the city, many of the streets are lined with tropical bushes, flowers, palm trees, and also brightly colored murals and graffiti that fill the city with color and life. The warm tropical climate prompts many doors and windows to be left open to let in a breeze, and this also lets in the many songs from colorful birds that are ever present in the city. The marriage of natural elements and urbanism create a truly unique and vibrant landscape in Cali.
In between these mountains outside the city you can see Río Felidia, the river that joins with Río Pichinde to form the Río Cali, the river that runs through the city.
To give you a bit more context about the city, Cali is the third largest city in Colombia, and it is located a few hours in-land from the Pacific Coast. Cali is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, is the most populated city in the southwest of Colombia and is the big melting-pot city of the Pacific region. Many people move to Cali from neighboring departments like Cauca, Chocó, Nariño, which are departments with the largest Afro-Colombian populations on the Pacific Coast and in the entire country. This makes for a robust cultural landscape. Colombia’s Afro-Colombian populations are concentrated on the coasts. I was just on the Atlantic (Caribbean) Coast in Cartagena, and I am looking forward to seeing how Afro culture is similar and different here on the Pacific Coast.
Some of the street decorations during La Feria de Cali last December
A couple observations that I’ve made thus far are that there actually are a ton of motos in this city like there are in Cartagena, but a lower concentration of them, and people who work as mototaxistas often work through an app called Picap, it's like the Uber for motos. The city is big, so things are more spread out and there usually isn't a huge concentration of motos nor people in the street, everything is more dispersed. However, you can find yourself in some bad traffic jams here in cars along the busy avenues. It's hot here, and the first few days when I arrived there was a bit of a heat wave that made it feel literally just as hot as Cartagena, but things have cooled down now. It's warm in the morning, hot around midday when the sun is at its highest point, and cool at night. Recently there's been a nice breeze in some parts of the city, right on time for kite-flying season here.
Something that I realized about people here since I’ve arrived and interacted with may more strangers than I did before in the times that I visited is that Caleños are warm, but are a bit more reserved and formal than Cartageneros. I had grown accustomed to saying buenas! to almost every single person I passed by on the street, and striking up conversation with people everywhere, but realized that that is not common here at all! When I did that here I was often met with looks of surprise, and with a more formal buenos días, buen día or buenas tardes in response to my costeño buenas! The accent is obviously different here too, but I need a bit more time to pick up on its elements. Like I mentioned before, the city is pretty green, and very clean too. Similar to in Cartagena, people play music aloud here quite a bit, but not nearly as often. How loud and how often definitely depends on where you are in the city.
More mountain views
I am so grateful to have had the chance to live in Cartagena, and to now live in Cali. It's kind of my dream-world best-case-scenario coming true, and I am so grateful. I can’t wait to settle in further, to form new connections, and to experience Cali more fully. Living somewhere is very different from just visiting, and it was very interesting getting to learn more about Cartagena beyond what is neatly packaged and prepared for tourists to experience. I’ve visited Cali a handful of times before, and I loved the city for its music, the huge salsa culture, the metropolitan yet tropical landscape, and because it was the only place where the peoples’ kindness, warmth, and openness was comparable to that of Cartageneros. I am ecstatic to spend more time here and to learn and experience the city beyond those handful of elements that I picked up on before.
I am looking forward to gaining a more in-depth understanding of this city, its people, the culture, and the city’s history. I am also looking forward to getting stronger in the gym, mainly for injury prevention purposes because I plan on dancing a TON (salsa en línea, salsa caleña, salsa On2, baile social, bachata, folclor, etc). I am excited to learn more about the different Afro-Colombian groups here in the Pacific region, a region that is often forgotten and marginalized in Colombia. I feel especially lucky to be able to start this exploration by attending Petronio Álvarez, THE festival of the year that highlights Pacifico culture which is happening right now in Cali! I am excited for happy accidents, to see, do and learn a ton of things just by chance, and because I have the courage to seek out new experiences and to say yes. I am excited for all the new connections I will make here, with my community, with my students, with new friends, and I am so excited and grateful for the opportunity to continue to grow and develop as a person, in my self-assuredness and self-confidence, cultural knowledge, and with my Spanish skills of course!
My friends Assata, Alexia, Nya and I at Petronio Álvarez!
My plan is to blog about my experiences in Cali, but in a little while; I still have a bit more I want to share about Cartagena. More on Cali to be posted soon(ish)! Chao!
