Cali, salsa capital del mundo

There is really only one reason to come to Cali and that is to party. And the biggest party of the year is the Feria de Cali, a 6 day non-stop, aguardiente drenched, free-for-all that runs from 25 to 30 December.

We had already been in Cali for two weeks before the festival begun, ostensibly to squeeze in a few salsa classes so we didn't humiliate ourselves too badly on the dance floor. Sadly a few hours of private classes are not enough to counter genetics and a general lack of coordination. Still, it's fun to try (though a few glasses of dutch courage are generally required).

The opening event of the festival is the salsadromo, a six hour parade of salsa dancers, floats and musicians. Two million people line the route, with about one million vendors ensuring that a cold beer is never far from your hand.

About thirty of us from the hostel piled into five taxis to head down to the festival site- Martijn and I ended up in different taxis and (unsurprisingly) didn’t see each other again for the rest of the day. It was harder than you’d think to spot a 6-foot blond gringo amongst a crowd of 5-foot dark Colombians.

I spent the day with Courtney, a girl from the USA who is even shorter than I am. By the time we arrived the best viewing positions were long gone, so we resorted to buying a plastic stool and taking turns standing on it to see over the crowd.

Almost as much fun as watching the parade was watching the crowd. Vendors selling huge aerosol cans of foam are almost as popular as beer vendors and it wasn’t long before the while scene resembled an enormous foam party. 

 

Like pretty much every festival, the general level of drunken silliness increased as the afternoon wore on, peaking when half the caleño police force were called in to disperse some overzealous party-goers. It's just not a party without a good old fashioned riot!!