{"id":3364,"date":"2019-03-18T23:28:56","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T22:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?page_id=3364"},"modified":"2019-10-08T16:26:39","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T15:26:39","slug":"salsa-nights-in-colombia","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?page_id=3364","title":{"rendered":"Salsa nights in Colombia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em>The big black guard outside the Topa Tolondra salsa club is built more like a security truck than a man. But the intimidating effect is offset by his spectacles and affability. \u201cWelcome to Cali \u2013 salsa capital of the world,\u201d he tells us. And does a few moves.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s any doubt that we\u2019ve arrived at the Holy Grail for all salseros<\/em>, there\u2019s a giant mural over the dancefloor based on Leonardo\u2019s \u2018Last Supper\u2019; but with Oscar D’Le\u00f3n, Rub\u00e9n Blades and Johnny Pacheco taking the role of the disciples clustered round Ismael Rivera (the Puerto Rican who made salsa such a street sound). A young Celia Cruz is the only woman at the feast, resplendent in a red ball gown with a smile that could light up Cuba, if not entire planets.<\/p>\n

They look down upon a cavernous dancefloor that is already shaking to a heavy bass and insistent marimbas. It\u2019s Tuesday and only 10 o\u2019clock, so the place is relatively empty. \u201cCome back at the weekend, and it will be so crowded, \u2018no bailas \u2013 sino que te bailas<\/em>,\u2019 says one of our guides, Danilo Uribe: \u2018you don\u2019t dance \u2013 you get danced.\u2019<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a young couple gliding around to a bolero, a man in a white suit, his partner in a bright yellow dress.\u00a0 He has his eyes closed while she does some elegant, intuitive moves, sashaying her hips around him. \u2018She teaches tango as well as salsa,\u2019 Danilo tells me.<\/p>\n

Danilo and Natalia Diaz have come to show us the city\u2019s best salsa spots and tactfully allay any Anglophile nerves. They can see that it might be intimidating to step out among the couples already showing off their salsa moves. But a shot of Colombian rum \u2013 to calentarnos<\/em>, \u2018heat us up\u2019 \u2013 and we are away to a fast Cuban timba <\/em>with a fabulous metronomic beat that sounds like one of the local woodpeckers trying to hammer its way out of the speakers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
there are more than a hundred salsa academies all over the city<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Both my girlfriend Jocasta and I love dancing salsa, but in the more rough and ready style of a London club. Natalia partners up with me to polish up my technique, while Danilo glides off with Jocasta to do the same. Over a couple of songs, Natalia teaches me the importance of the crucial \u2018pausa\u2019<\/em>, the pause you give on the fourth beat, before taking off again with what is the simplest of dance steps. The \u2018pausa\u2019<\/em> is what gives drama and precision to what otherwise would just become a soft-shoe shuffle.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy enough to master. For those starting from scratch, there are more than a hundred salsa academies all over the city, many catering for foreigners, as agencies like Plan South America can arrange in advance. And then it\u2019s about what you don\u2019t do: don\u2019t make the white boy mistake of moving your shoulders too much \u2013 it\u2019s all in the lower half of the body; and keep it light, fast and fun. If you want to dance seriously, keep to the ballroom waltz.<\/p>\n

Natalia was singing along loudly to the lyrics of each song, as were half the punters in the club. Three women nearby, dressed up to the nines in spangled dresses, were banging the table to the beat at the risk of spilling their drinks. As Natalia told me, salsa lyrics run deep in the heart of Cali, a city with one of the largest black populations in the whole of South America; only Bah\u00eda in Brazil has more. In colonial times, it lay on the route between the slaving port of Cartagena and the plantations down the Pacific coast.<\/p>\n

While the music may be light and uplifting, the lyrics are often drawn from the experience of those slave plantations, and tell of hardship as well as love. Like blues in the States, the music has deep roots.<\/p>\n

We were dancing to \u2018Las Caras Lindas\u2019 by Ismael Rivera, which has become a popular Cali anthem and tells of the overlooked beauty in black women\u2019s faces. Other songs describe going to work the sugar cane in the \u2018oriente\u2019 of Cuba. Which is not to say that salsa can\u2019t have its \u2018la vida es carnival<\/em>\u2019 moments, in the words of Celia Cruz\u2019s famous hit. One celebrated lyric has the singer Hector Lavoe exclaiming, \u2018if she cooks like she walks, I\u2019m going to eat every last scrap!\u2019<\/p>\n

How Cali became such a mecca for salsa is largely due to the Cuban revolution and Colombia\u2019s own cocaine wars. After 1959, when Castro closed down some of the Mafia-run nightclubs in Havana, many musicians like Celia Cruz decided to leave. While New York provided record labels like Fania, it could not guarantee large enough audiences and so Colombia with its Afro-Caribbean population was a natural place for the music to prosper.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The influence of rock music helped electrify the \u2018salsa boom\u2019 of the 1970s, which was further fuelled by Colombia\u2019s \u2018cocaine boom\u2019 of the same period. Cali in particular became the salsa party town; by contrast Medell\u00edn always had a stately, upcountry feel \u2013 more like Nashville to Cali\u2019s New Orleans. The cocaine barons who infamously dominated Cali back in the day could afford to bring in the very best musicians from Puerto Rico and New York. But the music was far more than just a soundtrack to Narcos<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Cali has always been a city that lived to dance,\u2019 Natalia told me during a break from my salsa instruction. \u2018My grandparents loved slow boleros and the guaracha<\/em>, but there was something about salsa when it arrived that tuned so much with the mood of the city that the whole place seemed to go into dancing overdrive. As a young girl, I could easily go out to dance every night of the week. Everyone did.\u2019<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Natalia grew up in one of the city barrios that were no-go areas for the police. As a young girl, she had seen no less than three of the salsa \u2018play-offs\u2019 when rather than resolve a fight with violence, gang leaders challenged each other to a salsa duel. Each man would dance solista<\/em> against each other to see who got the popular acclaim. The first two times this resolved the dispute. \u2018The last time it didn\u2019t and the crowd fled while the men reached for their machetes instead.\u2019<\/p>\n

That violence has now of course receded and Colombia has become a tourist destination of choice \u2013 although Cali maintains a rougher, more vibrant charm to the more manicured\u00a0 feel of Cartagena, which these days even boasts its own Hay Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
El Chorrito Antillano salsa bar: \u2018no entry if wearing shorts, flip-flops or carrying arms\u2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Clubs like Topa Tolondra used to have a sign telling customers to hand in guns at the door. That\u2019s long gone. But what has remained is the fantastic energy. I haven\u2019t seen a dance floor kick off with such wild abandon for a very long time. By the time we hit midnight, Jocasta and I were dancing fit to burst – although remembering to put in the all-important \u2018pausa\u2019 beat – and the margarita count was mounting.<\/p>\n

Before we could get too pleased with ourselves, Natalia pointed out that a true Cale\u00f1o salsero was expected to dance right through the night and then go swimming in one of the city\u2019s seven rivers at dawn, before eating a traditional breakfast of sancocho<\/em>, chicken stew. And head out to relax in the country for the rest of the day.<\/p>\n

For Cali is perfectly positioned to explore the wild landscape of the south of Colombia. We set off for the hills of the Parque Farallones, a nature reserve that extends from the Sierra Occidental right down to the Pacific coast. At a small farmhouse called El Doble Espiral, \u2018The Double Spiral\u2019, owner Carlos Casta\u00f1o, 52, has created a \u2018small is beautiful\u2019 retreat with organic vegetables: humming birds flit around the hammocks and the cabin on stilts where you can sleep. We got to swim in a river as Natalia had suggested \u2013 the small mountain rock pools of the Rio Mel\u00e9ndez \u2013 and could walk through the cloud forest.<\/p>\n

Carlos is part of a new wave of Colombians trying to reoccupy a countryside largely depopulated by the long civil war; this area saw particularly heavy fighting. He has set up a community farm market to try to bring a shattered neighbourhood back together. We spent a long evening over arepas<\/em> and roast bananas discussing the future of this beautiful but long troubled country.<\/p>\n

Then we headed on to the old colonial town of Popoy\u00e1n, whose whitewashed walls have nurtured no less than 28 future Colombian presidents, for a lunch of patacones<\/em>, fried bananas with cheese. Our driver had a memory stick with some 750 salsa songs, so we had plenty of time to sample them as we drove over the high moors of the p\u00e1ramo, with their espeletia sunflowers and volcanoes.<\/p>\n

Our final destination was one I had long wanted to reach but been frustrated by the security situation: the pre-Columbian site of San Agust\u00edn, with its iconic statues. Buried in elaborate stone tombs by a culture we still know surprisingly little about, these figures of chieftains and shamen were carved from the local volcanic stone. It is again an area that is just opening up to tourism: a new German-run hotel, the Monasterio hacienda, has fabulous views over the rich coffee growing area that surrounds the ruins.<\/p>\n

We flew out via Bogot\u00e1 and as is obligatory \u2013 quite rightly \u2013 made a stopover at the famous Gold Museum, started by a local bank when they realised that the artefacts being found and melted down by some of their customers were more valuable if preserved. Maybe it was because even days after the Cali club, I still had salsa tunes ringing in my head, but I couldn\u2019t help noticing that the elaborate gold coca-dippers had dancing figures on their ends. And that there were gold marimbas and percussion instruments. The origins of Colombia\u2019s obsession with music go very deep indeed.<\/p>\n

——————————-<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in the Financial Times<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Hugh dressed for salsa action<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
4 key dance steps illustrated in dance class mirror<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
all photographs (c) Hugh Thomson 2019<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The big black guard outside the Topa Tolondra salsa club is built more like a security truck than a man. But the intimidating effect is offset by his spectacles and affability. \u201cWelcome to Cali \u2013 salsa capital of the world,\u201d he tells us. And does a few moves. If there\u2019s any doubt that we\u2019ve arrived […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":63,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-without-sidebar.php","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3364","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3364"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3404,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3364\/revisions\/3404"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}