The practical stuff

A phone number, day one

A foreigner can buy a prepaid SIM with a passport: the regulator explicitly provides for it, and the shop will record your document type, number and name. Claro, Movistar and Tigo all offer prepaid eSIM as well, which saves the trip to a store — check your phone supports it before you land.

The part that catches people out: if you bring a phone into Colombia and put a local SIM in it, the handset’s IMEI has to be registered with your operator, or the network can stop recognising it. Phones simply roaming on your home line are exempt. Ask about the registration at the counter when you buy the SIM — it is a five-minute formality there and a headache later.

Source: MinTIC / CRC · 2026-08

If something goes wrong

123 is the national emergency line, free and round the clock. For a hospital you can walk into and pay privately, the two with 24-hour emergency departments and international patient offices are Fundación Valle del Lili (Cra. 98 #18-49) and Clínica Imbanaco (Cra. 38 Bis #5B2-04). Both handle foreign patients paying out of pocket, which is what you will be doing unless your travel insurance has a local arrangement.

For a pharmacy at 3am, Farmatodo has eleven 24-hour stores across the city. The one in Granada is at Av. 8 Norte #18N-44; there are others in Versalles, La Flora, Chipichape, El Limonar, Ciudad Jardín and Pance.

Source: Fundación Valle del Lili · Farmatodo · 2026-08

Tap water and yellow fever

Cali’s tap water is treated to national drinking-water standards and locals drink it. The caveat is not the treatment but the river: when heavy rain upstream turns the Cauca muddy, supply gets interrupted, and that has happened as recently as this year. Keep a few litres bottled at home for those days rather than for every day.

Colombia does not require a yellow fever certificate to enter as a tourist — the recommendation is non-restrictive. It is advised if you are heading into risk areas, and it needs to be given at least 10 days before travelling, so it is a decision to make before you fly, not here.

Source: MinSalud · EMCALI · 2026-08

The weather does almost nothing

Cali sits at about 1.070 m — high enough to be pleasant, nowhere near high enough to make you breathless the way Bogotá at 2.600 m does. There is no altitude adjustment to plan for.

Across the whole year, the average monthly high moves between roughly 29 and 31 °C, and the average low barely shifts at all. There are no seasons in the sense you are used to: what changes is the rain, in two wetter stretches around March–May and October–November, with drier months in between. Pack for a warm day, every day, plus something for a downpour. And because you are three degrees off the equator, the sun is far more direct than its temperature suggests.

Source: IDEAM — normales climatológicas 1991-2020 · 2026-08

Still missing: money

Which ATMs charge a foreign card and how much, withdrawal limits, whether you can open a Nequi wallet without a Colombian ID — that research did not finish, and rather than repeat what other guides guess, this section stays empty until it is sourced. Meanwhile, the practical rule everyone here follows: carry some cash, because plenty of small places still do not take cards.