Salento photos

No salsa photos, sorry

Colombia is thought to be dangerous, with cocaine mafia every corner and guerrilla fighters behind every tree. We’ve traversed its green heart without any problems. It is a beautiful country still to be discovered by tourists who for many years kept out of here.

In Cali, one of the world’s capitals of salsa, there is not much to see, except from the fabulous night life. Salsa is danced everywhere and its style is so much different from what we practice in Europe. Colombian salsa is more rhythmic, swingier, involves very little ‘vueltas’ and pirouettes, is somewhat more static, but elegant. We went on with our spinning salsa, occupying at the same time a lot more of the dance floor then other couples and paid little attention to the curious crowds of servants who were peeking at us from behind the curtains

Many salsotecas in Cali are actually very elegant, with modern interior design and thoughtful illumination, comfortable sitting places and a vast dancing floor (probably especially for spinning Europeans . The servants are elegantly dressed and are called by a button at a table to serve drinks. Unfortunately rarely do locals ask strangers to dance, which is a great pity considering the smooth moves of these Latin Métis boys. Usually people come to salsa in well established groups of friends in order to spend time with each other and not to get to know others.

Fortunately this wasn’t the case in Manizales, our stopover city, a relaxing spot after a sunny hike through the palm forest of Salento, and before the tiring nightlife and hot sunshine of Cartagena. In Manizales, we ended up in two salsotecas, one hopeless and the other filled up with student celebrating the end of the week (it was Wednesday .

Here we got to dance with many locals! The party ended quickly because of the ‘carrot law’. In Colombia there is a saying, that if you awfully boring you’re as boring as a carrot. That’s why the law, which closes all discos at 2 am, is called ‘Carrot Law’. The after-party in a park reminded us of the good old times, we’ve sat there till dawn by the sounds of Spanish guitar singing songs of Shakira and drinking rum.

Between dancing our asses off in Cali and in Manizales, we’ve traveled to Salento, a small village hidden in green slopes of the jungleous heart of Colombia. Everybody comes here to see the proud wax palm trees, the Colombia’s national symbol. They reach up to 60 meters (the world record in palms). The day-hike was excellent, in a splendid company of other backpackers from different ends of the world; however the scorching sun was almost unbearable. A small refuge with lots of hummingbirds of all kinds rewarded us the effort. One can easily confuse these little creatures with insects. They rotate their wings, which gives them a lot of maneuverability. These smallest birds can beat their wings 200 times a second (!!), and their harts up to 1200 times a minute. Although so tiny, they can fly fast (100km/h) and far (800km without a stop). Really impressive.

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  • Tags [city, dance, mountains, nature, relax]