Cali
— — the city that keeps time in salsa.
Not only on a wall.
“The third city of Colombia, set in the warm flat of the Cauca valley with the cordillera rising green to the west. The Río Cali runs out of those hills through the centre, lined with ceiba trees and small bridges. Above the southern ridge a white stone Christ looks out over the rooftops. In the barrios of Juanchito and San Antonio the music starts in the late afternoon and the dancers know which steps belong to which decade. from the studio
Cali, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Santiago de Cali, founded in 1536 by Sebastián de Belalcázar, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department and the third-largest city in Colombia, with a metropolitan population above 2.5 million. It lies at roughly 1,000 metres elevation in the warm valley of the Cauca River, with the Cordillera Occidental rising to the west toward Farallones de Cali National Park. The smaller Río Cali drops out of those hills and runs through the city centre. Sugarcane plantations cover much of the surrounding valley and have shaped the local economy since the colonial period.
Cali is widely known as the world capital of salsa, a claim grounded in the density of its dance schools, the depth of its archival record collections, and the Feria de Cali, held each year from December 25 through 30. The Feria includes the Salsódromo opening parade along Avenida Cañasgordas, where the city's leading dance academies perform in sequence. The Delirio cabaret, founded in 2006, combines salsa, circus, and live orchestra in a long-running show that has helped carry the local style abroad. The 1960s and 70s saw Cali absorb and reshape Cuban and Puerto Rican salsa into a faster, more footwork-driven form.
International flights arrive at Alfonso Bonilla Aragón Airport in Palmira, 16 kilometres northeast of the city. The Cristo Rey statue, a 26-metre concrete figure completed in 1953 on Cerro de los Cristales, looks east across the valley and is reached by a short drive above the San Antonio neighbourhood. Cerro de las Tres Cruces, on the northern ridge, is a popular early-morning climb. The colonial Iglesia de San Antonio sits on a small hill in one of the oldest barrios. The dry season runs roughly from December through March and overlaps with the Feria.