Salinas

Salinas is a small highland town famous in Ecuador for three things.

It is the only highland town made up predominantly of Afro-Ecuadorian people who were originally brought here as slaves to work in the sugar fields.

It is also famous for centuries of producing salt, which is where it got its name.

And it also is the home of a style of music and dance called bomba which has its roots in Bantu drumming and dance.

When our train pulled into Salinas we were greeting by a troupe of bomba dancers.

They performed for us and then invited us to dance with them. The red suited seniors from Otavalo did not need any encouragement and soon Daniel I and joined in.

The woman with the bottle on her head was the lead dancer. Dancing with bottles and baskets balanced on your head is part of bomba, practiced mainly by the women.