El Festival Mundial de Salsa

In my drafts of this post about El Festival Mundial de Salsa that I wrote a little less than a year ago, I started off by saying this:

“Every weekend I have here is beautiful, wonderful, different and they just keep getting better and better. I had the best weekend ever a couple ones ago at Parque Tayrona because of the chance to disconnect and be engulfed by nature, because of the pre-historic-like views of pristine beaches, and the fresh air. I had an unforgettable time in San Basilio de Palenque because of the people I met there, the music, the dance, the history, and the cultural exchange that I got to partake in during El Festival de Tambores. This past weekend was yet another one for the books. I lived my absolute best life visiting Cali, a city in the Pacific coastal region of Colombia, and the salsa capital of the world, for El Festival Mundial de Salsa, the World Salsa Festival, and I am soooooo glad I went. I learned a new style of salsa, called salsa caleña, which is the style of salsa that Cali is famous for. It is heavy on quick footwork y caderna (hips!), built off a basic step where you cross behind yourself rather than the front-back pattern of salsa en línea (which is what most people learn in the States and internationally).”

I had the time of my life in Cali during my first trip to the city, and it feels really special that I am currently recalling these memories & writing the rest of this post right now FROM CALI- more on that in an upcoming post :)! I will surely attend (and write about) this year’s iteration of the El Festival Mundial de Salsa in just a few months, but first, a recap of my phenomenal experience back in 2022…

I am a huge dance fanatic as you likely already know, but interestingly enough, initially I didn’t plan to go to the El Mundial due to a big event in the University that was to take place the Monday right after the festival weekend. Looking back, I’m not quite sure why I thought I wouldn’t be able to do both, but I guess I’ve just learned quite a bit about balancing work and play since then (gracias a Dios)! My friend Andrea convinced me to go to the festival and to just rest well on the flight back to Cartagena before the event at the university, and thankfully I did just that, because the experiences I had in Cali that weekend were amazing, and that trip is where my love for the city began!

View of Cali and *El Cerro de las Tres Cruces* in the background

I traveled to Cali for the Festival last October with my friends Andrea and Maggie, who also were Fulbrighters. When we arrived that Thursday night and walked through the doors of our hostel, I was met with someone excitedly shouting my name from inside. In the biggest coincidence, Elly, one of the friends I made in Palenque who also had also traveled to the pueblo for El Festival de Tambores, was working there! We arrived during her shift, and she recognized me from the security cameras before I even walked through the door! It was awesome to be welcomed to Cali and to the hostel by her, and we spent that first night chatting and catching up over a delicious slice of tres leches cake from a panadería on the next block.

Some of the beautiful greenery of the city

The next morning, Andrea, Maggie, and I did a bit of sight-seeing in the city before heading to the Coliseo del Pueblo for the first events of the festival that we planned to attend. We did a tour of some of the top tourist attractions in the city, including La Iglesia de la Ermita, a beautiful gothic-style church, El Bulevar del Rio, a walkway that borders the Cali River, El Parque de Gato, a park with a ton of cat sculptures and more. As we explored, I was amazed by how beautifully green the city was. Cali is a large metropolitan city but it still manages to incorporate a ton of tropical greenery into the landscape. The greenery, plus the color that come from brightly painted buildings, street art, and murals made the city beautiful and vibrant.

We walked a bit more to get to barrio San Antonio, which is known for its colonial architecture, murals, and cafes. We stopped at Loma de la Cruz, the famous craft market in the city, then at Galería Alameda, the popular market of Cali, to check out the plethora of produce available and to eat lunch. We had almuerzo ejecutivo for 14 mil, which is a bit more expensive than what I was used to paying in my barrio in Cartagena, but it was worth it. I had a huge meal of sancocho de pescado, cerdo asado, beans, salad, pasta, rice, tajadas, and I was stuffed by the end! After lunch we headed to the stadium for a dance class that I can’t quite remember probably due to my food coma hahah.

We took the class and eventually made our way back to the hostel to rest up a little bit before getting dressed to meet our friend Assata, who was the Fulbright ETA based in Cali at the time, for dinner. We went to this hip Asian Fusion restaurant in Parque del Perro, a park that has a ton of restaurants and eateries surrounding it. When we finished, we all headed back to the stadium grounds once more. The way that the festival is set up is that the main competition happens within the stadium, and outside of it there is a huge tent where the dance classes, discussions, and other events for the public take place during the day. Oh, something to mention is that all of this is completely free to the public! Something that a lot of foreigners and Colombians alike didn't know I realized. I thought it was wonderful how much was accessible gratuito for the community during this festival! Anyways, at night, the huge tent outside of the stadium is where the social dancing is held in the evening, and it was so cool because in the evenings after the competition rounds concluded for the day, the professional and semi-professional dancers who are competing mix with the public and you get a chance to dance with them during the socials!

La carpa!

There at the social we literally danced the night away until 2am when they shut everything down for the night. While we were there, we met other young people and a Fulbright Alumna who actually ended up moving permanently to Cali after completing her grant. She had performed with her dance academy, Swing Latino, in the competition at the festival earlier that day, and once the social dancing ended for the night, we all organized to keep the party going at an after-hours dance club called Donde Fabio, the only discoteca in the city that stays open past the time when all the clubs are “supposed” to close haha.

Learning & dancing during the social!!

There at Donde Fabio we danced for hours and hours and it was sooooo much fun. People dance salsa in many ways; many styles (en línea, caleña, On2, etc) and in many settings (socially, professionally, in competitions, etc) so it was so interesting to get to see salsa in so many forms that one day and to get to participate myself! It was a peak cultural experience being in Cali, spending the day learning and practicing salsa caleña, and spending the night connecting with caleños with the moves I learned. We literally danced all throughout the night and morning, and when we left the club, we drove home in the sunrise… like we saw people going to work! I learned just what it means to go out in Cali! I went to sleep muy contenta and woke up later in the day to meet my friends again at the festival.

Salsa caleña en Donde Fabio

At the carpa, we took a styling class with Alien Ramirez, a Cuban latin dance champion, trainer, and a judge in the competition. It was really interesting because she taught the class with special attention to the areas of technique that she noticed the dancers who had performed in the competition could improve upon, specifically body movement and angles of the body while dancing. There was also a salsa On2 class taught by two dancers from the States, Osmar Perrones and Bárbara Aquino, that was tricky but really fun. Myself and all the dancers looking on were especially mesmerized by Bárbara’s technique. She just flowed so effortlessly and was clearly really well-trained dancer. A ton of us, including the professional dancers taking the class, made sure to record the choreography to be able to practice and refer back to it later on.

La clase de salsa On2 con Osmar Perrones y Bábara Aquino

After that class, we took another with “El Mulato”, the director of Swing Latino, the world-famous dance company and academy in Cali. I got to dance with a dancer who was competing in the competition, and it was such a treat! I was struggling to keep up and he was pulling out allllll of his very best moves hahaha. I can't remember his name, but he told me he was from Popayán, a city located south of Cali, the capitol of a department called Cauca. His group was competing in the salsa On2 category I think, so his team members were equally as amazed as I was at his salsa caleña moves. After that class I went to watch some of the competition in the stadium. Kids were competing at that time, and they were so cute yet so fierce! My friends and I went back to the hostel, ate nearby, got dressed and headed back to the carpa for the social dancing and we danced the night away once more. If you’re a dancer who goes to socials you know that it sucks when you go out to dance and there's no one to dance with, but in a festival of dancers like this one there are a million people to dance with, back to back to back. I think I danced with about two-thirds of all the people there and I had the time of my life. I never tire of dancing and with all that I did I probably burned all the calories that I had consumed up until that point that weekend hahah.

I was struggling, but I was having a blast hahahah

We danced once more into the early hours of the next day, and made a stop in Quinta con Quinta, one of Cali’s many 24-hour panaderías, before saying goodbyes, going to sleep and waking up a little later Sunday morning to pack up and head to the airport. I did indeed try to catch up on my sleep on the flight back to Cartagena, but not before learning the slogan of the city “Cali es Cali and lo demás es loma”, which expresses that nothing and nowhere else compares to Cali. After a quick but phenomenal weekend filled with fun, friends, salsa, and adventure I was convinced!

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Mira Ve!

Gone Fishin’