Bienvenidas a Cali

Our first day in Cali confirmed what many a guidebook and discussion with Colombian friends had suggested: Cali is a business center. It is a business center that loves salsa, but it is a business center. There aren’t nearly as many conventional tourist attractions in Cali as in other cities we visited, but it had one in particular that was special for us. Alicia was born in Cali, and spent her first 3 months of life in a lovely orphanage there before her parents picked her up and brought her home. This was our first stop:

We had a brief tour with the director, and got to see kids playing and babies napping. The facility itself is really nice, and how has a public school that is attached and serves children in the the local community as well as the resident kids. We saw one baby who looked so much like Alicia’s baby pictures it was a little bit eerie, but we couldn’t take photos of the children, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

After our tour, we headed back to our hotel, which was one of my favorite of the trip, the Posada de San Antonio. It had a really nice courtyard with a fountain, and an incredibly helpful proprietor who helped us get the most out of our visit to the city.

We did walk around later and admired what our guidebook described as the best example of mudejar architecture in Colombia, the Cali cat sculpture (donated by a local artist) and the thought-provoking graffiti.

After about a week of travel, however, we were starting to tire, and we spent more time hanging around in the hotel in Cali than in any other city.