Being known as the salsa capital of the world, with many famous dancers, salsa schools, discos, museums, there is not much else about Cali. The city itself is quite grey, with very old and unmaintained buildings, market streets surrounding the city center and a bad reputation in terms of safety.

We were somehow lucky to arrive during one of the most important festivals of the year for the Pacific coast community – Pedro Alvarez. The people living on the coast nowadays are the descendants of the indigenous populations and of African slaves brought here during the Spanish occupations and they have specific traditional music, craftsmanship, food, beverages all of which were showcased during the festival. It was interesting to see, but the music was not even close to our taste and the food was extremely expensive, though quite tasty. We continued the evening in a salsa bar to observe Colombians of all ages dancing like crazy on their favorite music. Even though they looked passionate, we were not contaminated with their joy… We left the city quite disappointed in less than 24h.