After leaving the beautiful Iglesia de la Merced, just one block from both Cali’s central square, Plaza Caycedo, and the Museo del Oro, we were approached by an “official tour guide” wearing a “Guardia Civíco” hat.
After politely introducing himself and making the usual small talk, he explained that he worked for the Colombian government and was available, free of charge, to show us around some of Cali’s cultural sites. He led us to the Museo del Oro, helped us to get in, showed us around, and finally left refusing a tip, a perfect example of Cali’s famously friendly population.
Set upstairs in the Banco De La Republica, Colombia’s state-run central bank, the Museo del Oro is a small but interesting museum about primitive cultures from the Calima region, in the north west of Cali.
As currency is printed in the same building, security is strict, so bags must be left in lockers and photos inside the building other than inside the museum itself, are strictly forbidden.
The tour starts more than nine thousand years ago when bands of hunters and gatherers settled in the Calima region, subsisting on vegetables and small animals. By around 1500 B.C., the “Ilama” tribe had started 
building small villages, making pottery with intricate designs and growing an array of vegetables, as well as making sculptures out of gold, which is where the museum gets really interesting. Along with their successors, the Ilamas made incredible and intricate designs out of gold, which they used, among other things, to trickle lime juice in their mouths as they chewed cocoa leaves.
The gold museum is free to enter and is open from Monday to Friday from 8am to 11.30am and from 2pm to 6pm. The official website is: http://www.cali.gov.co/sil/sil.php?id=889
By Maximilian Thurlow
