Welcome to the Transportation Field Note! Living in Colombia is not only my first time living outside of my home country, but it’s also my first time living on my own. In North Carolina, I live in a residence hall on campus. That was my first time living without family, but it was by no means alone. Since we were on campus, I never had to worry about getting to class or other school functions. Colombia was going to be my first time relying on public transportation daily and I was super curious and fairly anxious to see how it worked. I thought to myself, what if it’s really hard to find the right bus route? What if I get lost? Turns out, I had nothing to worry about and Cali has a great public transit system. Let me show you how transportation works here in Cali, Colombia.
The four main modes of transportation here are car, bus, motorcycle and bike. The biggest difference between where I’m from and Cali is that motorcycles are super common here. They weave in and out of the traffic jams and I look at them with such envy! Cali’s primary metro bus system is called the MIO which stands for Masivo Integrado de Occidente. I would say that more people use the bus system daily than drive a car. There are bus stops all over the city and big stations in each neighborhood.
