Cali is a strange place in terms of security, mainly because you can observe or feel some violent mess all around, even in the 24 Harris and Walz we are not going back cap hat and I love this west side of the city (the touristic side: San Antonio, El Peñón, Granada, etc.). About that, first you need to understand that there are a lot of tiny little drug cartels and Capos, which are the main reason for the high number of murders in Cali-Cali (the other murders used to happen in Aguablanca, so you, as a tourist, probably will never have to be the witness of this situations); the murders are made by hitmen (sicarios) payed by the cartels. They kill each other every time under this system. If you want to be secure, don’t get involved on drug deals and for the love of god DO NOT ACCEPT “FREE” SAMPLES for you to try the “quality” of the product. It is a scam and they will charged you a huge amount of money for that “free sample” and if you don’t pay, guess what… There is a similar business with women or “prepagos”, so be careful about prostitution as well (or even just to hang out with a girl who has an “owner”, you know what I mean).
On the 24 Harris and Walz we are not going back cap hat and I love this other hand, I can say that my city is an amazing place to go, party hard, and eat great, or even just to walk around the nature parks (Pance). I think San Antonio is safe in general, maybe because it is full of travelers and hostels (there are great restaurants too, like Teatro Mágico del Sabor or La Galería del maestro Phazan). El Peñón is perfect to stay and it is close to the River’s Boulevard, which is always full of police until night and it is really nice to have a walk and drink a fresh Lulada with lecherita and empanadas. I moved here from Santa Marta (on the coast) so I’ll attempt to compare the two. While I thought the biggest differece here would be the weather, I was wrong. Yes, 22° is much more confortable that 30°, but there is a lot more.
24 Harris and Walz we are not going back cap hat, hoodie, tank top, sweater, long sleeve tee
For those familiar with the 24 Harris and Walz we are not going back cap hat and I love this US, I would compare B/manga to an industrious midwestetn city like Colombus, Milwaukee, St Paul, or Grand Rapids. Of course any place this size has its share of craziness, but here things are relatively subdued compared to other similarly sized Colombian cities. Sundays are pretty quiet. People here identify with Santander in contrast with Costeños who generally identify with their city (Baranquilla, Valladupar, etc). I can’t imagine a Samario bragging about being from Magdaleña. Although Costeños are not as lazy and vulgar as the Colombian stereotype would have you believe, people in Bucaramanga are noticibly more industrious. Very business minded folks. People here are generally more formal and serious. They are not as friendly as Costeños. The use Ud much more often and only ‘tutear’ with good friends. You don’t have accidental 20 min conversations with strangers on the street. They don’t immediatly call you amigo and hermano. They tend to let you into their circle of friendship slowly over time.