 “El Mulato” |
| From 20080930_col_cali |
On the first night getting to Cali, I went out to a place called Zaparoco, a popular place for salsa. A german girl I met in Quito also recommended this place to me. There I found the salsa atmosphere that I was looking for in Cuba. There is nothing but salsa there. Calians started trickling in around 10:30pm. By 11 the place was packed full. People danced on the dance floor, in the isles, by their tables. People brought their own cow bell, baby twin conga (I don’t know the actual name for the instrument) and a whole array of instruments to the salsa bar, sang and played along with the music. They love the music and they dance because they love the music. Dancing to them is secondary to the music. In the bar, you can hear live music from all around you because at every other table, someone is playing an instrument.  I felt as if I was in the middle of a live band. Because I was. This indeed is the salsa capital of Colombia and possibly the world.
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| From 20080930_col_cali |
 So my first class in Cali was with Lina, one of the girls from the Swing Latino Group. We went through the basic footwork of Colombian style salsa, but basically I figured that I wouldn’t be able to dance this style when I get back to the US. So we switched the focus to strictly shines. And boy, I was in for a workout! The shines she showed me didn’t have much syncopated timing, but many of them required balancing on one foot while shining with the other foot. One of the shines is basiaclly a kick-ball-change to the front and then kick-ball-change to the side. Then repeat with the other foot to the front and to the side. This is one shine where you can basically set a metronome and speed up your footwork after doing it 5000 times. When you can do it super fast, send me a video 
Her shines looked smooth, practicing 8 hours a day would do it, as she does when she trains for competition.
 Carlos and I |
| From 20080930_col_cali |
I met a couple who taught salsa in Cali, but after dancing with them and telling them that I wanted to learn shines, they recommended that I take classes from Carlos Paz, one of the well known salsa soloist from the last generation. On a sunday night, we found him in one of the “viejotec”, salsatec for old people. I didn’t see him dance there but did see a lot of incredible footwork by Colombian grandpas in shinny wing-tip shoes. My last day in Cali, I had two hours with him where he showed me one shine after another. I tried my best to repeat it on the spot after watching him do a few times and then jot down the basics. I hope I can make out from my scribble what the shines were.  You can see one of his performance hereÂ
I definitely took a lot away from Cali; I only wish I had more time there.
I expected only a 3 hour layover in Tokyo but as it turned out, my layover was 1 day and 3 hours. I took the opportunity to spend the night out in Roppongi, the night life district in Tokyo and then sightseeing the next day. Tokyo is a very foreigner friendly city. Knowing only a few basic Japanese phrases, I easily filled my 27 hours there without getting lost. More on it next!
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