Medellin, Colombia
South America, Colombia
Full file · 8 sections
I live in places instead of visiting them. Peru, Colombia, Portugal, Mexico. Teaching English, volunteering, learning the language on the ground, then writing up what it actually took: the combi you need, the price people really pay, the office hours nobody posts. I write the same field notes at Vibing with Locals.
- Total cost
- —
- Days needed
- 7
- Go between
- Dec to Mar
- Monthly cost
- —
Six bachata classes did more for my conversational Spanish than three semesters of college. Book the four class package in week one and go alone.
8 of 8 sections are free to read.
The Verdict
Six bachata classes in Medellin did more for my conversational Spanish than three semesters of college. It is an accelerant, not a foundation. You still need a tutor underneath it.
Medellin, where the six classes happened
Getting There
Finding a class is the only logistics here, and you do it in week one. Three sources that work: the hostel front desk, Google Maps, and Instagram. Search "clase de bachata para principiantes" plus your city, in Spanish, not in English. The English search returns tourist packages at three times the price. Ask the front desk where they dance, not where tourists dance. Same question structure as asking where someone eats. In Medellin most of the beginner classes cluster around El Poblado and Laureles. Poblado is easier to reach and more foreign. Laureles is better for the thing you actually came for. Getting to class: the metro plus a short walk covers most of the city, and it is clean, cheap and safe. Late at night take a car, not the walk.
The Month
Medellin sits at about 1,500 metres and the temperature barely moves all year. That is the whole reason people call it the city of eternal spring and it is true. What changes is rain. April, May, September, October and November are the wetter months. It does not stop anything, it just rains hard in the afternoon and then stops. December to March is drier and the city is busy with people who live abroad coming home. More parties, more classes running, more people out. If you want the dancing at its loudest, the Feria de las Flores in early August fills the city. Good for atmosphere, bad for finding a beginner class with space in it. The class calendar matters more than the weather. Most studios run beginner intakes on a weekly or monthly cycle. Ask when the next block starts before you book a flight around it.
The Receipt
I paid for the classes as a package at the studio desk in cash and did not keep the slip, and the rest of that week was ordinary living costs rather than trip costs. Rather than reconstruct a receipt from memory I have left it out. The one number I am sure of sits in the 48 Hour Language Partner brief: my tutor in Medellin was 12 dollars an hour on iTalki.
What Went Wrong
I went to the first class with a friend. We spoke English the entire time between songs and I learned nothing except the basic step. Every class after that I went alone. I booked drop ins for the first two weeks because I wanted to keep my options open. Keeping your options open is how you go twice. The package is the point. I left immediately after class for the first three sessions because I was self conscious. The free practice hour afterwards is where the actual talking happens and I skipped it three times out of embarrassment. I searched in English at first and got quoted tourist prices by a studio that runs private classes for foreigners. Searching the same thing in Spanish got me a normal class at a normal price with Colombians in it. I treated this as a substitute for study for about a fortnight. It is not. It is an accelerant. It gets you fluent in the specific narrow band of Spanish you use while dancing and it does nothing for the rest unless there is a tutor underneath it.
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