To Meet Cali, Colombia, Meet Sandra

Cali, a center of dance, a whole lot of dance. When I say dance, it seems like everyone in Cali moves their hips as if they needed to survive. Cali also has it’s place of history and amazing sites to understand. An old city with a lot of stories to offer from the cartel to salsa musical stars. But to really get to know Cali you really need to get to know Sandra. Who is Sandra you ask?

Who is Sandra?

Sandra happens to be a girl I meet in Cali, a 28 yr old young lady who can salsa dance as if her Cali blood calls for it and also studied Industrial Engineering. Her experiences being in the areas of production, quality, logistics and management of interdisciplinary projects aimed at improving and redesigning processes, pharmaceutical companies, agrochemical, mechanical and computer metal. Why I am telling you this? Sounds boring doesn’t it? Well, after some time it did to Sandra as well, and started following her passion instead.

Her Story

In 2011 Sandra went to Europe, using the platform Couchsurfing she wandered place to place being hosted by locals who showed her their hometown with much gratitude. When Sandra returned to Cali a year later in December 2012 she felt inspired by the people who helped her in Europe. She wanted to pay back those who helped her and hosted people through Couchsurfing. In doing so she started to show off they city of Cali so that she can have the visitors understand more about her home city.

With the help of her cousin, Camila, she was able to get together a couple of statues, bridges, churches and buildings as well as intricate stories to go with them. Since she had no access to a car, the only way to make this tour of places of history possible was do it all on foot. With all the planning going on, both Sandra and Camila found that what they were doing could be benefit more than just tourists but also locals to recognize the public spaces of Cali.

Colombia Walking Tours is Born

The two noticed that this could become a business to benefit all and for 4 months a business plan was put together to create walking tours. In June 2013 the business Colombia Walking Tours was born. The tours are built to both accommodate English speaking tourists and Spanish speaking locals.

My Experience

I had the pleasure to enjoy some time with Sandra as she gave me and a group from around the world a free tour of her city. Every Monday and Friday is a free tour of Cali where a local shows off their city. It starts at 4:00pm and lasts for 2 1/2 hours where Sandra and her partners help you understand why they love their city so much. It all starts at Ermita Church, a grand church that is gorgeous to look at. And from there we explored the historical areas of the downtown.

After all the tour was done Sandra invited us all to Topa Tolondra, a small salsa bar where they had a language exchange where gringos could practice their Spanish and Colombians can practice their English (or other languages). After all was said and done, we got to dance some salsa, where I learned that Sandra is an excellent salsa dancer.

I had a lot of fun in Cali, thanks to the service and passion that Sandra and Colombia Walking tours had to offer. Colombia Walking offers different tours and more can be found on their website:

Monday and Friday, The free tour through the historic center of Cali : Includes La Ermita, the Poets Park , Teatro Jorge Isaacs, CAM , Caicedo Square , San Francisco , Municipal Theatre, among others.
Duration: 2.5 hrs.

Tuesday Tour ” The Sports Tour” ​​: Includes Alameda Park, San Fernando Rey Church , Apple of Knowledge, Dog Park , Park of Flags , Unit , among others.
Duration: 3 hrs.
Price : $ 15,000 COP per person - Includes ” Cholado ” .

Thursday Tour ” The Salsa Tour : Includes 5 clubs , salsa class, welcome drink two of them a beer and entrance to “Tin Tin Deo Disco ” .
Duration: 2.5 hrs.
Price : $ 40,000 COP per person.

Saturday and Wednesday Tour ” The Cultural Tour ” : Includes Monument Jovita , Loma de la Cruz, San Antonio, Sebastian Belalcazar , Museo La Tertulia , Cat Tejada , among others.
Duration: 3 hrs.
Price : $ 15,000 COP per person - Includes ” Champus ” .

Moreover, currently Colombia Walking Tours also offers services in vehicle to some companies, and private who prefer to tour.

Have some questions about Cali? Ever meet some amazing people with a great passion? Perhaps you have questions? Leave a comment below, send me a tweet on twitter, or post on my facebook. Heck even send us a message. Let me know so I can help. Happy travels