Travel guide: Valle del Cauca

Sugarcane haciendas, Lake Calima and the warmth of the southwest

• Lago Calima: afternoon wind for windsurfing, kitesurfing and sailing.
• Haciendas with pools in Palmira, El Cerrito and Jamundí, near Cali.
• Buga and its basilica, an hour and a half from Cali.

Lake Calima

Lake Calima, in the municipality of Calima El Darién (about 1,450 m above sea level), is a reservoir with a steady afternoon wind, which makes it a spot for windsurfing, kitesurfing and sailing. If you are going for the water, look for a finca with a lake view or direct access. Calima is the town in Valle del Cauca with the most fincas listed on Finkeros, and half of its listings fall between COP 380,000 and COP 1,000,000 per night.

Haciendas and valley towns

Buga (about 970 m above sea level) has the Basilica of the Señor de los Milagros, a pilgrimage site for southwestern Colombia. El Cerrito has Hacienda El Paraíso, the setting of the novel María, a classic of Colombian literature. Ginebra (about 1,050 m above sea level) is known for sancocho de gallina (hen soup) cooked over a wood fire and for the Festival Mono Núñez of Colombian Andean music.

Getting there

From Cali, Lake Calima is about 2 hours away via Buga and the road to Buenaventura, turning off toward Darién. Buga is 1 to 1.5 hours away on the straight Cali-Palmira road. From Bogotá there are direct flights to Cali of about an hour, with several airlines (Avianca, LATAM and others). By road, Bogotá to Cali takes 9 to 11 hours via Ibagué, the Túnel de la Línea and Buga. Alfonso Bonilla Aragón airport, which serves Cali, is in Palmira.

What they won't tell you

At Calima the afternoon wind is what draws the sports crowd, but it also chills the shore: bring a jacket for the evening. And the road to Buenaventura, used to reach the lake, carries heavy truck traffic and closes for landslides in the rainy season.