Cali

You don't come to Cali to look — you come to move. The branch office of heaven keeps its own liturgy: the breeze that rolls down from the Farallones at five o'clock sharp, the crunch of a cholado, Tejada's river cat with his parade of brides, and above it all salsa — not background music here but the official language, with academies in every barrio and a December fair that stops the city whole.

The sensible traveller starts in San Antonio, the colonial hill of slow mornings; comes down to Granada and El Peñón when the table opens — the Valle's kitchen is a quiet power —; and gives the night to the salsa temples, from La Topa Tolondra to Juanchito, where dancing badly with feeling beats dancing well without it.

The usual honesty: August is worth the trip for the Petronio alone — the festival of the Black Pacific, the most alive thing this country owns —; the midday heat is not to be fought but siesta'd; and Cristo Rey is climbed early, because the whole-valley view at sunset is paid for with the drive down in the dark.