Homesick

Popayan
13 - 15 May 2010
   I have a tendency never to feel homesick and I never miss home. I always say that I think it’s easy for me to not feel home sick because the world I am off discovering is interesting, new and exciting. I think that the people left at home might be more inclined to miss the traveller because their world is much the same, but minus the person that left. However, on Friday night I think I had my first feeling of homesickness in this entire trip.
   I had gone to Popayan. I had heard from another traveller that the Salsa dancing was good in Popayan, and being that I would be hosted by the family of a friend when I went to Cali (the Salsa Capital), on whom I didn’t want to impose my need to dance, I decided to stop in Popayan and ‘get my fix’. The night was ‘painful’.
   First, for those who don’t know, I dance quite well. Well enough that when I dance in Brisbane Square with certain friends of mine the crowd has been known to stop, watch, gasp, and applause. But the locals here don’t know this. They just see a “gringa” and have no idea if I can dance. Good dancers are often bits of snobs when it comes to dancing (I have been known to be), we like to dance with people who can dance and don’t like to waste time on beginners (I do try not to be like this). So I wasn’t getting any dance invites, and the good dancers weren’t wasting any time off the dance floor to be snapped up.
   Then an old man (I’d say 70) invited me to dance with him. I accepted. It was boring... a typical Colombian Salsa shuffle*. He was also my next invite, I accepted again out of desperation. Again, he was invite number 3.... I said no, I need to dance with others, so he sent his friend up to dance with him. Then there was another old man, drunk. Arrgh! I was about to give up.
   Then an Australian guy, studying Spanish via a NZ university came in and although he didn’t dance, I had someone to talk to. But, old man #1 came back again to invite me to dance, I didn’t want to so I said “No Thank you”. But he got insistent, keeping saying “but I want to dance with you” and me replying “but I don’t want to dance with you and I am talking to someone now”. Then, and he was quite drunk by now, he came around and tried to barge his was between me and the Aussie! His friend had to come and pull him away and make him sit down. I was being fought for by an old man! What a terribly horrid night it was!
   I just wanted the company of my dancing friends back home. People who know I can dance and never leave me at the side of the dance floor unless I am insisting on a break.

*Colombians pretty much all seem to salsa dance, but for most of them the dance isn’t anything too flash, it’s social, and consists of the basic footwork and maybe the odd turn. I like to have more spins and tricks.

Notes: Accommodation, Popayan: Hostel Trail (part of a network). $8. Great hostel, great location, full of great travellers.