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The Bandits recently spent the weekend in Cali (Colombia, NOT California), and I planned to give you my opinion of the safety situation there. Talking to Colombians about safety can be a bit of a circular conversation, Bogotanos say Cali and Medellin are dangerous and Bogota is safe, Caleños insist that Bogota is the most dangerous, and no one is that fussed about Buenaventura, despite the Foreign Office asserting that it is the font of all the world's death and misery.
So, in my honest, blonde-tourist opinion, I felt better in Cali than Bogota. Generally I think they're both fine, and you need only be prudent for the reasons I mentioned in my Bogota article. However, walking down the streets of Cali I got a lot less hassle. Caleños, like Bogotanos, tend to stare more in open curiosity than aggression or anger, but the Caleños were an awful lot more subtle about it. I got the odd comment from a passerby, but no one tried to engage me in the street, no one stopped their car, no one made any sort of real fuss, just a few odd stares. While the comments on the street are really not what's most dangerous about a place, it is what tends to make me feel the most uncomfortable, much more so than the risk of mugging (because it's not like we don't have those in England). So, for me, that went a long way toward making me feel a little more comfortable.
I saw no evidence that the risk of muggings, kidnappings etc was any higher than in Bogota, and they also dramatically fewer homeless people. Bogota is going through a very difficult time with regards to the homeless, due to the massive amount of internally displaced persons from the fighting, the streets of Bogota are flooded with homeless, mostly of indigenous descent. Many of them are just trying to survive; selling gum and fruit by the side of the road, but many fall prey to drugs and alcohol abuse and take to roving the streets in gangs. Cali has just a handful of the homeless, much fewer than you'd see in a comparable English city, which also reduces the chance of petty theft and mugging.
I believe that Cali also may be more accustomed to tourists than Bogota. Certainly, in a bar in the more upmarket area of Grenada, you could see a foreigner everywhere you looked, which never happens up on this mountain. This means that the paths are a little more well worn, and thus a little more comfortable, for the travellers that follow.
However, I don't want to be misleading. Cali definitely has a problem with gangs and drugs. In our weekend there, we witnessed one arrest, and had to step over a fair few drug addicts outside the house we were staying. The drug addicts were polite however, with a tendency to apologise and move over to another stoop. I was told that most Caleñas walk on the road, not the pavement, to avoid being snatched into doorways, but this seemed easy enough advice to follow.
The Bandits made an effort to try the less touristy parts of the city as well, and went with a few locals to a Salsateca on the edge of the rougher district. Now, this club had no shortage of young "events promoters", who were driving around in shiny new beamers but living in the projects, but all illicit activities were carried out far from plain sight and never seemed to pose a threat to those who didn't seek them out. The club had a good, safe atmosphere and our entire trip was hassle-free.
So, while I wouldn't say that Cali is a good place to be born poor, and there are definitely districts to avoid, from a traveller's point of view it's a great place to visit, and certainly not the death trap that is sometimes advertised. I only wish that English drug dealers and addicts would be as discreet...
x Erin x
- comments
Pablo very interesting! I think people need to understand that the British attitude to drugs is not the same the world over.
Allison You need to write more often!!
Ed K paso?
Dave Great article! Very interesting..