Like maple syrup in Quebec, cane sugar plays a huge part in the culture of the region that surrounds Cali, the Valle del Cauca. It generates an enormous amount of revenue for the region, and, other than its use as a sweetener and in traditional desserts, is turned into many products including rum and ethanol. All school children in Cali have been taken on fieldtrips to the Cane Sugar Museum, and anyone who has traveled through the countryside has chewed on raw cane, sucking out the sweet juices, cut for them by a farmer with the machete that all farmers from the region carry on their belts. Each year a girl is crowned the national “Reina de la Caña de Azúcar y la Panela”, beauty queen of the sugar cane.

Here are a few scenes from the celebration of Colombia's independence day, the 20 de Julio, on La Plaza del Chorro, in the historical La Candelaria neighborhood.

The insistant humming birds stay just out of reach, their hyperactivity seems at odds with the tranquil environs, but, this is not a surprise, we are in the Eje Cafetero and there is a seemingly effortless efficiency about life here.

Learning to dance salsa was the last thing on my mind when I arrived in Colombia. I'd taken lessons at a studio in Washington, DC a few years earlier, but I was far too shy to start asking strange women to dance outside of the classroom.