I have been slowly making my way south through Colombia and arrived yesterday at Cali, the Salsa capital of the world (dance, not sauce). Naturally, I made my way to a free lesson.

I walked over to the salsa school with a few people from my hostel, including an older Colombian named David (dah-veed). Everyone was speaking English and I didn’t want David to feel left out so I spoke with him in Spanish about each of our trips, including Salento (of which he was a big fan).

Once we all got to the lesson, our blue-silk-clad instructor led us through four salsa steps, starting with the aptly-named “basic move.” Basic move was my Mecca for the evening. After an hour of significant perspiration and laughter by everyone involved, our free lesson had concluded. As a reward, I decided to splurge and buy a $1 beer. I bought one for David as well.

After stepping outside from the sauna classroom, a bunch of us talked near the street. All of a sudden, the group witnessed our instructor going to town punching some guy on the sidewalk. All in his blue silk outfit and black suede shoes. Needless to say, this was a little alarming. Once we got the full story, it turned out that someone had stolen his phone and run away. We fixed our gaze upon the scene, which now included numerous police officers. Guess who was on the ground? None other than David, the man with whom I had been speaking just an hour earlier. Apparently my conversation and $1 beer were insufficient. He also required a phone.

In fact, after speaking with some more people, I learned that someone’s friend had his phone stolen by David the previous night in a different hostel. Needless to say, he was pleased to see the ladrón (Spanish for thief and one of my favorite-sounding words) being taken into custody. They never found the instructor’s phone, though. Evidently, David had thrown it into a taxi once he realized he was being pursued by the phone’s rightful owner. Quite the ordeal. After a couple hours, I went back to the hostel and explained the situation to the 20-something French girl at the front desk who spoke a little English and even less Spanish. Along with other hostel “volunteers”, we came up with a plan of action in the event that David might return (the basic gist being “don’t let him in”). And so ended my night.

Today I woke up and took a comparatively uneventful stroll around Cali, including a nice park.

The park came complete with a series of painted cats, which is a hallmark of any reasonable city.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I found some lovely art on my walk, which stood in marked contrast to the ugliness of the robbery.

• 

• 

In the course of writing this post, I have now been informed that David was allowed to come back to the hostel, pick up his luggage (likely replete with contraband), and walk free. Gotta love the Colombian justice system.