New Year's in the Mountains: Mateo's Story from Cali

Yo, let me set the scene for you.

It's December 29th, I'm on a bus from Medellín winding through mountains so green they look edited, and I've got my headphones on playing the set I produced for a club in Cali that I was supposed to DJ on New Year's Eve. Was supposed to. The gig fell through — venue had a permit issue, whole thing collapsed forty-eight hours before the biggest night of the year. Two months of preparation, gone.

My boy Sebastián hit me up: "Parcero, come to Jardín. I'm at this hostel called Isla de Pascua. Trust me." Seba's the kind of guy whose "trust me" usually ends with me in situations I can't explain to my mother, but I was bummed about the gig, had no plans, and figured — why not? Ring in the New Year somewhere I've never been.

Best last-minute decision of my life. And I say that as someone who makes a lot of last-minute decisions.

The Beat of a Small Town

Here's what you need to understand about me: I'm from Cali. The salsa capital of the world. I grew up on rhythm — it's in the pavement, in the way people walk, in the way my mom stirs the sancocho. When I started producing electronic music at nineteen, my friends thought I was betraying our roots. Nah. I was just adding new layers to the same foundation.

So when I got to Jardín, I was listening for the beat. Every place has one. Medellín's got this reggaeton pulse — fast, urgent, always going somewhere. Bogotá is jazz — complicated, layered, a little cold. Cali is pure salsa — warm, swinging, impossible to sit still.

Jardín? Jardín is bambuco. Slow. Graceful. Unhurried. The rhythm of horses on cobblestone. The rhythm of coffee being poured. The rhythm of old men in the plaza who've been sitting in the same chairs for forty years and wouldn't have it any other way.

I checked into Isla de Pascua and found Seba by the pool, already three aguardientes deep and making friends with what appeared to be every single person staying at the hostel. Classic Seba. He introduced me to the crew: a couple from Argentina, two French girls, a German dude named Tobias who was inexplicably good at vallenato, and a group of Colombians from Bogotá who were escaping the December cold.

"Parce," Seba said, "this is going to be the best New Year's ever." I was skeptical. I'd been booked for a 2,000-person venue. Now I was at a hostel with a pool in a pueblo of 14,000 people. But something about the energy — the way the mountains held the sound of laughter, the way the sunset turned everything gold — told me Seba might be right.

December 30th: The Warmup

Every good party needs a warmup, and December 30th was ours.

In the morning, Seba dragged me to a coffee farm tour. I was not enthusiastic. I drink coffee to survive, not to appreciate. But the tour was actually incredible — watching the whole process from cherry to cup, tasting coffee that made my usual Cali street tinto taste like dirty water, and learning about the families who've been growing here for generations. The farm owner, Don Hernando, played bambuco on a guitar while we drank coffee on his porch, and I found myself nodding along, hearing the rhythms, already thinking about how I could sample those guitar patterns into a track.

That's the thing about Jardín — it sneaks into your creative process without asking permission.

That afternoon, the hostel common area started to transform. People were stringing lights, setting up speakers (small ones — I tried not to judge), arranging tables. The staff were cooking. The smell of lechona and tamales filled the entire place. I offered to handle the music and the staff said yes so fast I think they'd been hoping someone would volunteer.

I spent three hours in a hammock building a playlist. Not a DJ set — a playlist. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, vallenato, some electronic stuff, bachata for the couples, champeta for when things got loose. I structured it like a wave: start mellow, build energy, peak at midnight, bring it back down for the late-night vibes. Old habits die hard.

December 31st: The Main Event

New Year's Eve in Jardín is different from anything I'd experienced, and I've DJ'd events in Cali, Bogotá, Medellín, and Cartagena.

The day started at the plaza. The whole town was out. Vendors selling grapes (twelve grapes at midnight — the tradition), yellow underwear (for luck — don't ask, just accept it), and suitcases that people walk around the block with at midnight (for a year of travel). The Basilica was decorated for a special Mass. Kids were running everywhere with sparklers.

Seba and I walked around the town for hours, stopping for beers at different bars, chatting with locals who were already in full celebration mode by 3 PM. An old man in a ruana sold me a bottle of homemade aguardiente from a cooler and said, "Para que empiece el año con candela, mijo." So you start the year on fire, son.

By 8 PM, we were back at Isla de Pascua and the party was already forming. About thirty people — guests and some locals the staff had invited — gathered around the pool area. Tables were heavy with food: lechona, tamales, empanadas, arroz con pollo, ensalada de frutas, and enough aguardiente to concern a medical professional.

I plugged in around 9 PM. Started with some old-school salsa — Héctor Lavoe, Joe Arroyo, Celia Cruz. The Argentines went crazy for the salsa. The French girls were trying to follow the footwork. Tobias the German was somehow keeping up. The Bogotá crew was singing every word.

Then I transitioned to cumbia — slower, more groove-based. People who'd been sitting down started swaying. The hostel staff joined in. One of the cooks came out of the kitchen still wearing her apron and danced a cumbia with Seba that was so smooth it made the rest of us look like we were having medical emergencies.

By 11 PM, the energy was electric. I bumped it up — reggaeton, then champeta, then some Afrobeat. People were dancing by the pool, on the chairs, on the tables (until the staff politely asked them to stop). Someone set off a few early fireworks from the garden. The mountains echoed.

Midnight

Midnight in Jardín hits different.

At 11:55, I pulled the music back. Soft. Mellow. People gathered in a circle. Someone passed around grapes. We could hear the countdown starting from the plaza below — the whole town counting down together, the sound carrying up the mountainside.

Diez. Nueve. Ocho. Siete. Seis. Cinco. Cuatro. Tres. Dos. Uno.

FELIZ AÑO.

Fireworks erupted. Not just from the plaza — from everywhere. Every direction. Rockets shooting up from farms, from backyards, from the hillsides. The entire valley lit up like the sky was celebrating too. The mountains caught the sound and bounced it back, creating this surround-sound experience that no club system could ever match.

I'm standing there, grapes in my mouth, aguardiente in my hand, surrounded by thirty people I'd known for less than forty-eight hours, watching fireworks paint the Andean sky — and I thought: this is it. This is the set I was supposed to play. Not in a club with lasers and smoke machines. Here. With mountains as the walls and the sky as the ceiling.

I cranked the music back up. Joe Arroyo's "La Rebelión" at full blast. Everyone singing, everyone dancing, everyone alive. The party went until 4 AM. At some point, Seba fell asleep in a hammock and someone put a party hat on him. At some point, Tobias attempted to teach everyone a German drinking song and we all butchered it beautifully.

The Morning After

January 1st at Isla de Pascua was perfection. I woke up at noon — no shame — and found half the party crew already by the pool, looking beautifully wrecked, drinking coffee, and sharing stories from the night before.

"Remember when the cook danced cumbia?" "Remember the fireworks?" "Remember Tobias's German song?" "Remember when Seba fell asleep and we put the hat on him?"

These are the moments. Not the 2,000-person venues. Not the professional sound systems. The moments are thirty people, a borrowed speaker, mountains, fireworks, and the kind of connection that only happens when everyone's guard is down.

I sat in a hammock that afternoon with my headphones and my laptop and started producing a new track. I sampled the firework echoes I'd recorded on my phone, layered them with the bambuco rhythms I'd been hearing all week, and added a bassline inspired by the cumbia the cook danced. I called the track "Jardín." It's the best thing I've ever made.

The Takeaway

I'm a DJ. I've been to parties on rooftops in Bogotá, on beaches in Cartagena, in warehouses in Brooklyn. The New Year's Eve party at Isla de Pascua in Jardín — with its borrowed speaker, its homemade aguardiente, and its fireworks bouncing off the mountains — was the best party I've ever attended.

Not because of production value. Because of human value.

Jardín taught me that the best beats aren't the ones you produce — they're the ones that already exist, in the rhythm of a small town that knows exactly what it is and doesn't need to be anything else.

Gracias, Jardín. Gracias, Seba. Gracias, Tobias and your terrible German song.

And to anyone reading this: go to Jardín for New Year's. You won't regret it. Bring yellow underwear.

— Mateo, back in Cali, still working on that track