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Cartagena: Rooftop Salsa & Champeta Dance Class with Drinks

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Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/14

Duration2h 30m

GroupUp to 8

LanguagesEN · ES

Mobile ticketAccepted

Grass Under Your Feet, Latin Rhythms in Your Hips

You spend three hours on a private grass rooftop in Getsemani learning salsa, bachata, merengue and champeta from an instructor who teaches step by step. Drinks — wine, beer, rum — come throughout, and you get a video of everything you learned so you can practice later. No experience needed, and the sunset over the fort is just there while you dance.

2h 30m

Step-by-step itinerary

Arrive at secret rooftop in Getsemani
Enjoy views of neighborhood and San Felipe fort
Learn Salsa basic steps and turns
Practice Merengue steps and choreography
Learn Bachata steps and twists
Practice Champeta, Cartagena's native dance
Drink wine, beers, and typical rum
Learn common Cartagena slang
Combine steps into choreographies
Receive video tutorial after class

The Experience

Grass beneath your bare feet. A private rooftop in Getsemani, the neighborhood where Cartagena's street art bleeds into colonial walls, and from where you can see the Fort of San Felipe catching the last light. You're three floors up, the city spreading out around you, and someone is about to teach you how to move to salsa, bachata, merengue and champeta — the rhythm that was born right here, in this city. The class runs three hours, and it starts the moment you step onto that grass.

Your instructor breaks down each dance step by step, no rushing. Salsa first — the basic step, the turn, the twist — then merengue, then bachata, and finally champeta, the native Cartagena sound that feels less like a dance and more like a conversation with the street. Between rhythms, there's wine, beer, rum shots from Colombia, and water to keep you steady. You're not performing for anyone; you're learning the actual movement, the weight shift, the hip roll that makes sense only when your body figures it out. By the end, you've got a choreography for each one, something you can actually do, and the instructors send you a video tutorial afterward so you can keep practicing at home — which, honestly, you probably will.

The rooftop itself is the thing. Grass instead of concrete, views that shift as the sun moves, and the kind of privacy that makes you forget you're in a city at all. Public transport stops are nearby if you need them, and the class welcomes all fitness levels — this isn't about being good, it's about learning the steps and feeling the music in a place where that music was made.

What’s included

Your three hours on the rooftop include instruction in four dance styles (salsa, bachata, merengue and champeta), two beers, two glasses of wine, two rum shots and two bottles of water per person, a choreography for each dance, and a video tutorial sent after the class so you can keep practicing.

Good to know

Easy physical levelPublic transport nearby

Operated by Real Experience Cartagena

Is this one for you?Pick this if you want to learn actual Latin dances in the neighborhood where one of them was born, without the formality of a studio — the rooftop and the drinks and the grass floor are what make it feel like something more than a class.