“Dude, if you wanna meet local girls you gotta be able to dance.”

I avoided the tango in Buenos Aires, but it’s going to be hard to avoid salsa in the Caribbean.

“I hate dancing.”

“You’ve just gotta move your hips.”

“I’ll need a few more of these first.”

I take another sip of watery beer. Colombian beer isn’t great but at least it’s cold. It’s still as hot as hell even though the sun went down two hours earlier. The humidity is unbearable.

Me and Mo are sitting in a small square in front of the church of Santisima Trinidad in Cartagena’s working class neighborhood Getsemani. A Major League Baseball game is projected on the church wall. A local armed with a microphone provides Spanish commentary and the sound reverberates off the surrounding homes. Caribbean music is being played somewhere.

There’s a community atmosphere in the square. Families are lining the bench seats eating food served by street vendors. Kids are playing soccer. A couple, limbs intertwined, are staring into each others’ eyes. There’s an important game of chess playing out next to us.

A street dogs lies at Mo’s feet. He tries to feed her but she’s not hungry.

“Let’s go,” he says.

Looking around I start to feel a little envious. Maybe it’s the six months of mostly solo travel, but at this moment I want to be a part of their community. I want to sit and talk about work, the weather, or what my crazy neighbor Carlos is up to.

I could stay here all night but Mo is determined to see me dance.

With new Aguilas we stroll through the narrow backstreets, Mo’s new friend following us for a few blocks. Families are sitting out the front of their homes on plastic chairs, avoiding the heat trapped inside.

The colonial Spanish architecture is beautiful, but in this area the yellow paint is fading and peeling on every building.

We arrive at the central tourist area called El Centro. The architecture is the same as Getsemani but the paint jobs are fresh. It’s clean and there’s well dressed tourists everywhere. I can’t see any drug dealers.

El Centro, also known as Old Town, is surrounded by a 20-meter-thick wall lined with rusty cannons aimed at the Caribbean Sea. It was built by the Spanish in the 16th century to protect the city from pirates. But the city will have no defence for assault I’m about to launch on the dance floor.

We walk across Plaza de Los Coches for the first nightclub we see.

“Here, wear my hat.”

I put the black pinstripe fedora on and laugh. I feel like an idiot.

“The girls will love it.”

“I need rum.”

We cross the cobblestone street, pass the bouncers and go into the converted nightclub.

We follow the music to the second floor and open the doors. It’s dark and almost empty. We order Cuba Libres and case the joint like two ex-cons.

There’s a long single room with a balcony at the far end overlooking the plaza. In the center is the dreaded dance floor, with tacky red lighting and a disco ball. It’s occupied by about 20 drunk backpackers, there are no locals and there is no salsa dancing. I relax a little.

Closer to the bar is a dark lounge area with furniture that look more like props from a bad science fiction movie. Two Colombian girls are talking to an overweight, effeminate looking Colombian male. I know what Mo’s thinking.

“Lets talk to the girls.”

We walk over and pull a up a space cube. Their male friend leaves. The girls are very beautiful; they have dark skin and long black hair. They could easily be models. They look bored but smile when we sit down. I immediately recognize they’re prostitutes.

It’s made clear early on, through Mo’s basic Spanish, that we’re not interested in their “professional services,” but they’re happy to talk since business is obviously slow. I sit next to Maria and feel a little intimidated.

Maria’s from nearby Barranquilla and she is built like a ballerina. She has a friendly face and a beautiful smile. Her English is a little better than my Spanish, which isn’t saying much, and I purposely avoid talking about occupations. What were we supposed to talk about?

Thinking about what to avoid I mention salsa and her eyes light up. Colombians love to dance, especially salsa. When I tell her I can’t dance she grabs my hand and pulls me to the dance floor.

She takes my hands and urges me to follow her steps. The music’s slow and the steps aren’t too hard. I watch her hips. They move with a fluidity and grace that is mesmerizing. I try to copy her but it’s not pretty. I feel like a garden hose out of control. Maria doesn’t mind, she’s happy to be dancing and keeps encouraging me.

The music speeds up and the dancing starts to heat up. She is twirling, writhing down to the floor and back up, and pulling me close, all without missing a beat. Her timing is impeccable.

After a few more songs I’m still doing the same basic steps but I have no idea what Maria’s doing. She’s really getting into it now, I don’t even know if it’s salsa anymore. It’s damn sexy though and I’m not going anywhere.

Mo is clapping and laughing and gets on the dance floor with his new friend — he’s a natural. We’re having fun dancing in the heat and sweat of our first Caribbean nightclub. We keep going for a few more songs and eventually, worn out, we return to the space lounge for a break. We chat with the girls for a while and this time it’s more relaxed and open. Maria tells me she came to Cartagena to pursue a modeling career. I hope she keeps trying.

The night comes to an end and we buy the girls a drink and say good night. I thank Maria for the salsa lessons and we go outside. I’m reluctant to admit to Mo that I had a good time dancing, but I’m already secretly looking forward to trying salsa again.

By Matt Dawson

[All photos by the author]

About the Author

Matt Dawson is a freelance writer and photographer from Australia. He loves exploring new destinations and learning from different cultures, and is equally at home sipping rum in the Caribbean or snowboarding in the Rocky Mountains. Matt has spent most of 2011 embarrassing himself with poor Spanish throughout South America. He is currently residing in London. Check out more of Matt’s work on his website.

The post My Salsa Lessons From A Prostitute In Colombia appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

Is there nothing better than shipping off on a red-eye flight in the depth of a cold winter night and arrive, half-a-day later far on the other side of the Equator (assuming you’re coming from the north) in warm South America? Plants are budding, locals are excited about the onset of summer, and you’re just glad to spend a week or two far from any vestiges of black snow banks and flu-infested workplaces.

With that in mind, Condé Naste Traveller (or what I like to sometimes call Condé Nasty if they let me) decided to ask South American travel expert Sue Lyall about where to go, what’s hot, and where to stay in the continent. Here are the highlights.

Hottest Country: Argentina, for its hiking, good eats, llamas and wide variety of activities in this large swath of land. You had me at llama.

City to Visit: Cartagena, because of its historic old city, its nightlife and its beaches. And also because people, despite everything that’s been written about the country, don’t realize how amazing Colombia is, so it’s not totally overrun by tourists yet. It will also make you realize how completely unaesthetic your neighborhood is back home.

Best Place to Stay: Pousada do Toque hotel in Alagoas in Brazil, because it’s located on the ocean just north of Bahia, there are manatees there (enough said!) and the area is still pretty unknown, thus once again, not too many tourists.

The post Ideas For Travel To South America This Fall appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

This week Cartagena, Colombia, is getting the “walk-in-the-shoes-of-“blank” treatment from the NYT, with a look at the city through the eyes (and hands) of Gabriel García Márquez, perhaps Colombia’s most famous artistic export (outside of Shakira). Though they note the author never really lived there for much of his life (his family moved there after his own short stint there), he now winters there and is sometimes seen sipping a cocktail at the nearby Sofitel hotel, or dining at La Vitrola, a cuban-themed restaurant specializing in Batista-era ambiance.

So how much did the man make the city, or was it the other way around? “It is a city so pregnant with the near magical that, when Mr. Márquez took a visiting Spaniard on a tour one day that included a Creole lunch and a stroll through the old city, it lowered his opinion of Mr. Márquez’s talents. The Spaniard told Mr. Márquez, as he would later record in an essay, ‘You’re just a notary without imagination.’”

The post Gabriel García Márquez’s Colombia appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

Here’s the third and final video from my trip to Colombia: Cartagena.

Cartagena is easily one of the most beautiful cities in the world and one of Colombia’s most popular cities to visit. In this video I wander the city’s picturesque “Old Town,” visit a museum dedicated to the city’s history of inquisition and torture, and explore the underground tunnels beneath the massive fort, Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas.

The post Travel Guide to Cartagena appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

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Does this happen to you too? As soon as you book a trip somewhere, it seems like everywhere you turn you start to see or hear news articles and stories about where you’re going. For me it seems like a day hasn’t gone by since I booked my trip to Colombia when I haven’t come across something about Colombia. Last weekend there was a huge article in the NY Times about dining in Cartagena, a couple weeks ago Lonely Planet released a video about travel to Bogota, the blogs have been abuzz with plenty of stories (here’s one and here’s another) and just this year Anthony Bourdain taped one of his episodes there.

And not to be outdone, Budget Travel, that bastion of provocation and instigation amongst travel circles (ok, well not really but a few Argentinians may have some contention with the following) is proclaiming in this article that Cartagena is : “The Next Buenos Aires.” Slam! Take that you Porteños and your world-class football. But seriously, it does seem that Colombia is finally — and deservedly — receiving the credit’s it’s been due. I’ll be leaving for there in three weeks to work on some videos and articles. E-mail me if you have any requests for what you’d like me to check out while I’m there. I foresee lots of eating and drinking, listenting to music, enjoying the sun and beaches, and practicing my broken Spanish with the locals. But I’m open to suggestions.

The post On The World’s Radar: Colombia appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

Cartagena, Colombia, has been experiencing a dramatic upsurge in the number of visitors over the last few years, with over a million in 2006 coming to see this colonial city on the Caribbean coast. Besides being named a UNESCO World Heritage Site as well as being one of the region’s top beach getaways, Cartagena has also been attracting the attention of food lovers the world over, most recently in the NY Times this Sunday where the paper explored three of the city’s best restaurants.

In describing the eclectic influence the city’s many cultures have had on the food, the Times notes, “[o]ccasionally, the chef may give a nod to French or Italian cooking, but tamarillo ratatouille, grilled squid and homemade coconut broth are never far away.” And, if you weren’t already convinced, take a look at Anthony Bourdain’s recent excursion there where he munched on some of the best ceviche that he’s ever had.

The post Cartagena Is For Food Lovers appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.