If you love Tango and enjoy the beauty of nature, then this retreat which hasn’t happened for 5 years just started again.

I read about the retreat years ago but never had the opportunity to go. Many friends have gone and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. So when I knew we would have the time in the Northwest I registered us, even checked out what visas were needed to enter Canada.

This retreat happens in early May and is a vetted encuentro because of space limitations. Early registration is necessary.

This encuentro is limited to about 100 people, gender balanced for dancability. Mostly peeps from Seattle, Victoria, Vancouver, and the local environs, too.

We were very lucky as the weather had just started to warm up. It actually reached 65 degrees F one day with sun shinning all day long.

The milonga was held at Mahon Hall. It is an older building that has been re-purposed as a community hall with a beautiful wooden floor and a kitchen area and centrally located in downtown Ganges opposite the boat harbor.

The tango community here  is very friendly and welcoming, but of course,  had a bit of the tango camaraderie thing going for it too.

There was a different dj every night starting Dj Bobby from Montreal, and on Saturday afternoon Mixhael Daniels, the DJ on Saturday night was TDJ Tom Lee from Seattle and on Sunday for alternative and traditional Milonga there was Cliff and Becky from Pt Townsend.

The delicious snacks were prepared thoughtfully and had many healthy choices with fruits, protein bars, and sweets included gluten-free and vegan goodies too. Wahoo for the gluten-free.

Dancing was delicious as I had a many tandas with my partner, then danced a few other tandas with some old and new tangeros. Ahh, tango. There’s nothing like dancing to Pugliese.

We met a lot of new wonderful dancers, and I was able to reconnect with a few folks from the past. Maximo was his limited English, found himself chatting to many folks in Spanglish, and did a great job communicating.

In the evenings, we found some outstanding food at a restaurant called Auntie Pestos. It was so good, we ate there two nights in a row, crab cakes and pasta boloñesa and the following night a rack of lamb with tomato and capreses salad. Was very tasty !!!

At the milonga, some folks were curious about our lifestyle as we dance tango all over the world, but especially in places where Pl the weather is sunny and the temperature over 75 F. We enjoyed chatting about the experience of traveling, the ups and downs, and delightful things you discover while traveling.

The crew of people who were responsible for putting the event on were pretty impressive assemblying the sound, the decor, the flowers and the food before the event then having to completely disasemble everything after the event was over. It’s a heroic undertaking!!

If we’re in the northwest again, we would happily attend the Salt Spring Tango Retreat, especially as the weather cooperated. It was a wonderful and delightful experience.

Thanks and a shout out to Laura Klein and all her fabulous helpers for creating and presenting us with such a beautiful space and place.

We stayed at a place that was the perfect antidote to 2 weeks of shuffling and moving stuff from one place to another. We would definitely stay there again, The Cottages on Salt Spring Island. It was a 5 minute drive from the milonga location in downtown Ganges. It was on a big lake and at night lots of frogs croaking as they do in the spring!!!