Salsa Capital of the World — the Feria de Cali, Río Cauca, and Colombia's Most Passionate City
Cali is the undisputed world capital of salsa — not the commercial Cuban or New York styles, but Cali-style (caleña), a fast, foot-focused, low-centre-of-gravity form developed in the city's barrios in the 1950s and 60s when Afro-Colombian dancers adapted Cuban mambo records to their own footwork traditions. The Feria de Cali each December draws a million visitors for six nights of open-air concerts, salsa competitions, and the world's largest salsa parade. Delirio, the city's theatrical salsa show, runs monthly and is widely considered the most spectacular salsa performance on earth. The Río…
Cali was founded by Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar in 1536 — one of the oldest European cities in the Americas — but remained a colonial backwater until the arrival of the railway in 1915 connected it to Buenaventura on the Pacific. The city grew rapidly through the twentieth century as a sugar and textile manufacturing hub, and became a majority Afro-Colombian city through migration from the Pacific coast and Caribbean lowlands, giving Cali its distinct musical character. The city's reputation suffered during the 1990s when the Cali Cartel was the dominant cocaine-trafficking o…