Southward from Salento we arrived in Cali.

Cali is supposedly the Salsa capital of the world, but not a particularly pleasant (or even safe) city. Our plan was just to stop by and go spend a day out in the nearby wilderness of Oasis de la Sirena.

But, while the Sirena looked pretty cool on Google maps, it seemed very complicated to reach by public transport. Moreover we realised that the annual feria was not over and there were concerts all over town, so for one day we might as well enjoy the salsa capital of the world!

Concerts were supposed to begin around 2 or 3pm, but at that time they were merely setting up and practicing, and nothing really began before 5pm, to last until around 1am.

The problem is that from 5pm, it’s considered « night time » and, because alcohol is sold in the arena, kids are not allowed to enter! It’s not like we’re going to fill up our 10 year old with hard liquor, just because it is sold there, but there was no negotiating the rule! I don’t know if this absurd law was imported by our puritan friends from the US of A, or if it’s just a local flavor, but it makes no sense at all!

And therefore the safe arena surrounded by security guards was forbidden to our child, and we had to go further out to an open market with a smaller stage where we could enjoy the festival.

In theory, it seemed a lot more dangerous to me than the first option, but in practice it was very friendly and perfectly fine 🙂

It’s just that, instead of watching the big bands of Salsa, we ended up watching some folk dances. It was fun as well, but not really what we had been aiming for 🤷🏼‍♂️