Impressions of Colombia - Part 2 (hint 💃🎶)

In part 1, I share my impressions of the friendly and personable people in Colombia.

Now for Part 2...

Music and dancing is life for many Colombians

I mean they LIVE for it. It's like music and movement are in their blood and bones. One minute Colombians are sitting chatting, then someone plays a salsa song, and they're all instantly moving and singing! Not just swaying their shoulders either, their up on their feet with their hands on their heart as they groove, exactly in time to the music.

I can’t imagine how hard it would be if you didn’t like salsa music or dance, especially in Cali, the capital of salsa.

Right now as I write this, the owner of my guesthouse, Roger, has salsa blaring on the stereo and he is very slowly cleaning the house after his big birthday party. The party was two days ago. The cleanup is taking multiple days because he stops to sing and dance constantly. There’s no rush around here (more on that later).

At Roger’s party, he had a live salsa band. There were around 6 people in the group and various guests also got up to perform at different points. It was incredible to watch all the musicians and all the guests so passionately singing, drumming or dancing. It’s very infectious. People walking by stopped out the front to sing and dance for a bit before continuing on their way. Everyone respects salsa music here.

In one of my other guest houses, the cleaner and one of the long-time guests broke out in dance in the kitchen while breakfast cooked.

When I was away with my friend's family, we were all enjoying the hot tub and even THERE we got some dance practice in!

There's a salsa street party every Friday night...

Then there’s a group of friends I know through my Spanish teacher. I kid you not, they go out dancing 4-5 nights a week. And most of them have normal full time jobs in the day. I do NOT know how they do it (energy wise). Almost everyone can dance salsa in Cali. And not in a basic way. They have so much style and grace!

It's really hard to capture in words but I hope this gives you a little glimpse into the life here.