Cali Transportation
Cali has one of the main airports in Colombia, the Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport (CLO), located in the municipality of Palmira, a fifteen minute drive north of the city. CLO is the second busiest airport in number of passengers and the fourth in freight traffic in Colombia.
Buses, taxis, and vans add up to 43,000 public service vehicles. All taxis are yellow. The names of bus companies go by colors, Blancos y Negros, Azul Plata, Rojos y Grises (white and black, silver blue, and gray red).The capacity of vans ranges from ten to twenty passengers. In the near future, a bus-lane based transport system, the MIO, will begin operations.
Bus to Bogota is 12 hours, Medellin is 9 hours, Pasto is also 9 hours. In Cali itself, taxis and buses are plentiful.
The Rodrigo Bonilla Aragon - (Palmaseca) airport is 20 km from the city. You can take a taxi (COP 50,000) but a colectivo is just as fast (about half an hour) and much cheaper (COP 4000) that will take you to the bus terminal where you can catch a cab in the city.
To take a colectivo, go down to the doors where passengers arriving on national flights leave the airport (opposite end from international flights) - there is always a colectivo waiting. These arrive every fifteen minutes up to about nine or nine-thirty at night and go to the bus terminal in Cali.
The bus terminal is in north Cali just a few blocks from Chipichape. You can walk to the bus terminal from the center - just follow the river along Av 2N, or take a bus or taxi (US$ 2).
Buses to go to Bogota (US$ 22, 12 hours), Medellin (US$ 13, 9 hours - if you take the 10:00am bus you get to see the countryside) and Pasto (US$ 12, 9 hours). The Pasto buses can drop you off in Popayan.
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