July 30, 2003 (from Puerto Rico)

Sun, Fun and Salsa in sunny Puerto Rico!

After arriving on Friday, July 25th… as a normally insane salsa aficiando, the first thing you do BEFORE you check into your hotel room is get your salsa congress pass… Why do you ask... because as it gets close to the first week, most dancers are lining up for usually more than an hour to get their pass.

Another bonus was the free café negro and leche that I grabbed while waiting… then off to the Hotel Miramar where you have a fabulous supermarket down the street with everything you need, Los Pinos Café for locals which has a great Mofongo Pollo (mashed plantains formed into a bowl filled with yummy chicken), and just a 10 minute walk to Caribe Hilton.

But although the San Juan Open World Salsa Competition was on, and we had Oscar and Vanesa, Pawel and Dora, Sonia and Moris competing from Canada… only Sonia and Moris made it to the finals and finished in fourth place. 1st place went to Jhesus and Marielys from NYC, 2nd Place to Marina and Iberocay from Sweden and 3rd place was Luis and Marta from Colombina. While these salsa fanatics spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday competing all afternoon… I spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday sightseeing all over the island…

On Saturday, I spent the day driving along the northwestern coast to check out the beaches and then into El Yunque Rainforest. It was a lovely trip into nature with running streams and waterfalls… and then a very long uphill climb back to our car which gave me an amazing workout… and then experienced a detour through the middle of Puerto Rico which is full of winding hilly terrain and had a rollercoaster ride back to San Juan.

On Sunday, I spent the day driving towards the northwestern coast to find beaches, but it was mostly secluded private waterfront beaches and a trip to the Rio Camuy Caves, the third largest in the world, but unfortunately, it was full due to the holiday and couldn´t get in and then zoomed back to San Juan to enjoy the evening at the Puerto Rico Salsa Congress, which had a live band, but there wasn´t as many dancers as I suspected because it was before the actual Congress was starting. I was exhausted so I didn´t have the energy once again to wait to watch Willie Rosario as I was planning to get up early and go south to the southwestern coast to try and find a white sandy beach and enjoy some seafood in a local restaurant.

We succeeded this time and then decided to take some local central roads back to San Juan. The only problem with these roads it that they wind so much in the middle of the island that to so a short distance on the map literally takes you a couple of hours, and it would have taken possibly one to two days to drive the center horizontally so we opted back to the main highways so we could get back to San Juan at a decent hour. Driving 3 to 5 hours on winding roads seeing all kinds of farm animals… such as my search for the perfect short of the scrawny little roosters that kept crossing our path, occasionally seeing a bull or cow on the side, or how about passing 3 local Puerto Ricans riding horses on a road that looks like it barely can hold two cars side by side… I have my own one hour documentary of my 3 day trip across Puerto Rico… moments never to be forgotten…

And then on Tuesday, it was time to come back to reality as I had my first Salsa Team Canada practice with 6 cities… it was difficult to get back into the salsa swing of things, and then spent the afternoon on the beach to catch some of the sun I missed as we had a mix of sun and rain each day and a lot of time in the car… and then zooming around and getting ready for the evening shows.

That´s when I started to finally get back into the salsa groove, I was even so tired, I forgot where I left my dance shoes, not realizing that I left them in a corner of the bedroom, which I couldn´t remember and thought I lost them after the practice. Typical dancer behaviour and found again thanks to Michelle, the Ottawa Coordinator.

The shows were great, the stage was great, but the best part of the evening was seeing, hearing and-or dancing to Roberto Roena LIVE! He rocked, he even danced shines with Papa Tambour from Puerto Rico, along with Stacey Lopez and Tito Orto… he even had his shoes off and did it all.. What most dancers don´t realize is the songs we dance to from these amazing artists, and he had some awesome classics, but the only song which name comes to mind is Bin Bin and it was off the hook. And then they had some musician solos that just blew the crowd away, including a three cowbell solo which was awesome to watch.

It´s one of those moments where I didn´t have my camera and digicamcorder to videotape those precious moments which will may never come back again in the same moment of time and feeling but will live forever in my heart… not including watching some of the fun dancing of the night including a Puerto Rican couple who looked like friends and just flirted to the music of Roberto Roena... another snippet never to be forgotten.

What a way to start the Congresso, but I had already missed some of the salsa greats, such as El Canario and Bobby Valentin. Why were they playing so early in the week, well they are off to Colombia, and that was the only time slots available… but at least there´s still the dancing…

Only two more practices with Salsa Team Canada, and we perform on Friday night. This year is more challenging as we had to wait until we arrived in Puerto Rico to do our transitions between the cities and learn the choreography for the finale. Which is made up of shines which I love so dearly, thank goodness they are simple… I guess I´ll soon become an expert at those…

Now off to the beach for some sun!   

August 5, 2003

Back to Reality...

That's probably the toughest thing to do... especially since the weather is so crappy back in Toronto... Although we didn't have perfect sunny days everyday... it was still one of the best salsa vacations I have ever had as I decided this year to take time for me and see the island, and only watch shows in the evenings so I would have some time to get some suntanning and social time with friends... since I knew 2-3 hours of each day would be spent practicing with Salsa Team Canada in primetime suntanning time.

Although I was there earlier in the week during the San Juan Open Salsa Competition, I didn't watch any of the performances as I would not have had time to tour the island.

What was also a little nuts was that everytime I promised my salsa friends that I would be back in 5-10 minutes, it would actually take me sometimes 30 minutes to an hour to get back to where I was because I kept running into salsa dancers and performers from all over the World and would stop to chat and/or say Hi.

Who showed up, well that's a story in itself... and we had dancers from around the World... and if I didn't have a chance to talk to them, someone else got the scoop... there just wasn't enough hours in the day to do everything as always... and it was difficult to always figure out what all the STC members were doing and when... I've downloaded all my pics (about 1200) and have started organizing them into various sections, such as STC, social and shows.

And then I had some awesome dances and watched some awesome dancers... and got to hear some great music that you don't hear in Toronto... need I say more... stay tuned as I'll try to post the pics BEFORE I take a mini non-salsa vacation this coming weekend... and post all the emails we have been receiving for the past 10 days! Now back to reality...