Compared to the rest of Latin America, Colombia is definitely not the cheapest. But I attribute this to a smaller tourist industry, especially compared to Peru and Brazil, for example. There is less of an established tourist infrastructure meaning that there is less competition driving prices down. That said, you can travel for cheap if you travel like a Colombian and don’t book hotels in advance and use buses instead of flying. 

I have found that online you can either book bog-standard hostels with dorm rooms for cheap, under $20,000 per night depending on the city, or more luxurious or multi-national hotels which are more expensive from around $170,000 per night for a private room. There is a big price gap online but once you arrive somewhere and ask around, you will often find independent hotels with private rooms that simply don’t advertise online as they serve Colombians rather than international tourists and often you can negotiate the price down to around $60.000 per night upwards for a double room. 

A bus from Cali-Medellín or Bogota for example would cost around $30,000-$40,000 each way but this takes a long time which people working here often don't have and tend to travel on bank holiday weekends. Thankfully for air travel, Viva Colombia, the new “budget” airline, offers an alternative to the other companies. Nevertheless, relatively speaking it is still expensive compared to, say, Easyjet with a flight Cali-Bogotá starting from $80,000 each way if booked well in advance. But, again, this is due to the newer tourist industry and hopefully prices will begin to decrease.

I will follow this post with location-specific information regarding what to do, where to stay and how to get a good deal on the Caribbean coast and around Cali.

I am not sure why it has taken me so long to put this post up, maybe it is because it feels strange taking photos of the things you see every day where you live. Anyway, I live in an apartment complex/gated community. It is quite a special community in Cali and is quite well-known to locals. It is a cooperative and the only one of its kind in the country I believe. 

In spite of being smack-bang in the middle of a bustling city, it is very calm with low blocks of flats and a lot of greenery along the paths, giving it shade and making it very peaceful, like a little oasis. It also has the biggest swimming pool I have seen in Cali and it is surrounded by plants, a children's pool and a waterfall feature above a sauna room! It is the only community complex that I have seen that doesn't have really tall apartment blocks. Where I live, they are only 4 storeys high so it does not feel like an expanse of concrete. 

Here are some photos of the flat, community entrance and blocks:

Here are some photos of the grounds, pool area and the little shop. You can also see the Christ statue from the pool area. There are always plenty of beautiful birds around and a sweet old man who lives here as a parrot called Roberto that he takes out once a day and only lets girls stroke him, what a player! Click on the images to enlarge them:

Unfortunately, a couple of times a month in Cali there is no water and/or electricity. Most of the time the electricity goes for a few hours, maybe up to 10, but the more annoying thing is when water goes. There is rarely any warning about this, and even when there is, it can last for over 24 hours so flushing toilets, cooking and washing become really tricky. About a month ago the water went for 24 hours with no warning, even though it was due to planned works, so I just cross my fingers that this doesn't happen when I have to work or haven't showered yet that day! And I really feel for people caring for the elderly or babies, it must be really difficult to handle because not everyone can afford to go out and buy bottles of water. 

Every time there is heavy rainfall the water and/or electricity are almost guaranteed to cut out due to landslides or rivers overflowing. When the electricity goes, we hear a huge explosion and then it cuts out. When the water does come back, for a good 4 hours it comes out of the taps all brown full of sediment so is unusable. People here are used to it but, to be honest, it is pretty terrible and there don't seem to be any improvements. The infrastructure simply is not built or maintained to support a city of millions of people and rich and poor alike suffer from the cuts. I feel this is a rudimentary human right, especially in urban areas like Cali, to have adequate sanitary and electricity provision and I hope, for the sake of the Colombian people, that the government addresses these shortages.

Some lighthearted memes do always appear on Facebook around these times though, such as this one below about water (captions read: 1) 'Yesterday in Cali - Today in Cali'; 2) is sarcastically saying that Cali is 'Like any European city'; 3) is paraphrased from a famous song and reads 'The problem is not showering, the problem is that there is no water'; 4) '17 hours without water in Cali'