60 low tables, with 240 low chairs; all red, they are arranged on the main room of La Topa Tolondra: very close to the wall leave the track free for the important thing: the Afro-Antillean movement that triumphs, that continues to triumph, in Cali.
An enormous painting presides over the room, it is a performance of “The Last Supper”, the last gravy supper: Ruben Blades, Celia Cruz, Joe Arroyo and Hector Lavoe are some of the twelve apostles that surround the messiah: Ishmael Rivera, “the elder sonero”. Salsa in Cali is religion; the Topa, his prophet.
La Topa Tolondra, Cali.
It's 7:00 p.m. in a few minutes they open the doors of the temple. Inside there are only the waiters and security. The first, relaxed –Like someone who knows well how to do his job, like someone who has done his job many times–, they set up the bar that will quench thirst of much. The seconds: high, very high; strong, stronger, finalize the security measures; they have an air miami-beach. The music sounds loud, adequate. Y the air conditioning, powerful, invites you to move.
Some tables have the reserved sign (the closest to the track, to have the drink at hand). Others, few, begin to fill up. It's 8pm and I order the first beer. Nobody dances yet. over my head there high quality photos and definition where Malcolm X, Dizzy Gillespie and Muhammad Ali, with threatening poses, they seem claim where do these rhythms come from; of Africa, Sure.
While I was writing some of these lines, a couple went out to dance, I missed the first steps of the night; luckily, many more came. Then a second rose. A third. A fourth. I do not know if it was the song that was playing or the group effect what Courage to these couples. A fifth was raised; ten people dance, but they look like five: their hands, knees, elbows, shoulders move as if joined by a thread; they are tempted, they anticipate; they never collide, they harmonize, they merge. There are already six. And seven.
La Topa Tolondra, Cali.
It's 9:00 p.m. and the dance is not going to stop. There are already ten, twelve couples. There are already fifteen, twenty. I stop counting, I stop being able to count, and order the second beer. Today is Saturday and the club is usually full: the capacity is one thousand people, 500 couples, two thousand feet.
There's no time to waste drinking (drinking), here you come to dance . The solution: drink shots: a bottle of rum or a caneca (half a bottle) served alongside a glass filled with lime quarters, a pitcher of lemonade and a few plastic cups: You already imagine the process.
Between song and song there is less left: less rum, less lime, less sobriety. Those who danced well now they dance divine; those who moved agile, now seem not to touch the ground; and those of us who didn't dare, now we do. One, two, three, the base step is easy and hook. One two Three, they move you, they guide you, they smile at you at will. One, two, three: you follow, concentrated, the one, two, three of your feet. The floor is tiled domino color tiles where I wish the indications were inscribed for move your feet to the beat and suitable place.
They go out to dance usually they to them: they extend their hands to ask for the dance; They also spread a smile. They are taken out indiscriminately; the song ends and each one by his side, there is no courtship, there is no seduction, no attempts; usually there aren't. Some dance without hardly looking at each other, with the lost look on the horizon; others, with their gazes fixed, sing to each other the most beautiful verses of the songs.
La Topa Tolondra, Cali.
The tangle is dense, the track overflows. They dance in pairs and also, indirectly, in groups: the choreography is delicate, the free spaces are changing, they are occupying and vacating; among all they form a very lively and hypnotic tetris: his feet dribble, feint, dodge, trick the tiles.
“If you smell of cane, tobacco and tar, you are in Cali, oh, look, see”, the verses of the most famous song in Cali sound –listen to it– over the rhythm of the key code (instrument made up of two cylindrical wooden strips) and the rage grows: pairs of young, old, black, white, foreign, Colombians in musical communion, in a trance to the rhythm of four by four. It's 10 o'clock and I order my third beer, I close the notebook until tomorrow: whoever wants to know what's going on in La Topa Tolondra from 10pm to 3am… You'll have to get closer to find out.