Exploring Cali

Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017--Cali, Colombia

Although Cali is on the coast and has warm temperatures, it isn't as humid as it was along the northern Caribbean coast.  This is the Pacific coast of Colombia.  Apparently it makes a big difference, because it is much easier to wander the city without wanting to escape to the air conditioning.

Being my first full day in Cali, I set out for some of the major sights.  If anyone reading this has seen the third season of Narcos on Netflix, you will have seen glimpses of where I went.

First, I walked along the riverfront downtown.  The city has closed a street beside the river, has planted palms and other trees along the way, and has put benches, sculptures, etc.  It makes an easy way for pedestrians to get from one part of the city to another.  The river is down below, so it doesn't show in photos of the walkway, but it has a low flow with rocks showing and is pretty.  It can be seen in many of the scenes in the series on Netflix.

I used the walkway to get to the far side of downtown to visit the Museo la Tertulia, the modern art museum here in Cali.  Like most contemporary art museums, it was heavy on videos.  But I found three of them to be interesting--one showing a staged documentary being filmed in Cali in the 1970s, a documentary criticizing the country for spending so much money to bring the Pan American Games to Cali in the 1970s when there was so much poverty in the country, and one by the artist Karen Lamassonne who began her career here.  In the case of the latter, it was interesting to see how aspects of the film were used in other artworks she produced.  An artist I had not known whose work I enjoyed seeing was Santiago Caisado.  He's apparently from Ft. Worth, and they had two short video pieces by him with one in 3D.  This is not the video I saw, but watch it and see what starts happening at the 1:00 minute mark.

From the museum, I headed uphill to the San Antonio area of Cali--part of the original city with old colonial homes and a few cobblestone streets.  On top of the hill is the Iglesia San Antonio with a nice view of the city of Cali.

Downtown, my first stop was Iglesia Merced.  It reminded me of the mission churches in San Antonio in size and general appearance.  Next, I stopped at the Cali Teatro and toured the Gold Museum across the greet from it--another of the wonderful gold museums scattered around Colombia with smaller exhibits similar to those of the big museum in Bogota.

Next came Plaza de Caicedo, the main square of the city and the Cali Cathedral which is rather simple inside.  Finally, I saw the Iglesia La Ermita, a fairly new church patterned after one in Europe, before crossing the river again and heading back home.

I stopped twice for refreshments on my tour during the day.  First, I had an unbelievably delicious lemonade from a street cart.  It was both tart and sweet and so refreshing!  Then later, I ate a meal at a restaurant just before getting back to the apartment--the usual soup, meat, rice, side dish, salad meal, but the vegetable was tasty when mixed with the rice, the chicken leg had a nice sauce over it, and the soup, as always, was the best part.