Current Time in Palmira, Colombia

Palmira lies in the Cauca Valley of south-western Colombia, on the flat floor of the great river basin that runs between the western and central ranges of the Andes. It stands about twenty-five kilometres east of Cali, at an altitude of just over a thousand metres, which gives it a warm climate moderated by breezes off the mountains. Known as the Villa de las Palmas, the town of the palms, it is surrounded on every side by an ocean of sugar cane.

With a population of around three hundred and fifty thousand, Palmira is one of the largest cities in Valle del Cauca. Its significance is agricultural and scientific. This is the heart of the Colombian sugar industry, with several of the country's biggest mills operating in and around the municipality, and it is also a national centre of agricultural research, a combination that has earned it the nickname of Colombia's agricultural capital.

The valley was settled by indigenous peoples before the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth century, and colonial haciendas producing cattle, cacao and sugar spread across the plain. Palmira was formally established in the late eighteenth century and grew steadily through the nineteenth as a market town. The construction of the railway to the Pacific port of Buenaventura and the mechanisation of sugar production in the twentieth century transformed it into an industrial centre, drawing workers from across the region and from the Pacific coast.

The city itself is pleasant rather than monumental, with a cathedral on the main square, shaded parks, a bullring and a lively market. Its real attractions lie in the surrounding countryside, where the sugar estates preserve grand old haciendas with white walls and wide verandas. A short drive away, in the neighbouring municipality of El Cerrito, stands Hacienda El Paraíso, the house immortalised in María by Jorge Isaacs, the most famous romantic novel in Latin American literature, and now a museum visited by readers from across the continent. The nearby Museo de la Caña de Azúcar explains the industry that shaped the valley, and the mountain roads climb towards páramo and cloud forest.

Palmira shares the musical culture of the Cauca Valley, where salsa is not a fashion but a way of life, and dance schools, orchestras and street parties fill the calendar. The regional cuisine is generous, built on sancocho de gallina, pandebono and the local sweets made from cane syrup, and the annual agricultural and livestock fair draws visitors from all over Colombia.

The city has an important advantage in transport, because Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport, which serves Cali and the whole region, lies within the municipality of Palmira. Highways connect it to Cali in half an hour and to Buenaventura, Bogotá and the coffee region. The Palmira campus of the National University of Colombia specialises in agricultural sciences, and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, a globally important research institution studying crops and food security, is based just outside the city.

Palmira blends warm valley life, deep agricultural roots and serious science in a very Colombian way.