Watch: Prince Harry speaks Spanish to cheering crowd at music festival
Prince Harry was cheered by tens of thousands of festivalgoers as he addressed the crowd in Spanish on the last night of his Colombia tour.
Speaking on stage at the vibrant Petronio Álvarez Pacific Music Festival in Cali on Sunday night, the Duke introduced himself and thanked the country’s vice president for hosting them.
“Goodnight Cali, goodnight Colombia. Many thanks to the Madam vice president,” Harry told the audience.
Also speaking in Spanish, Meghan told the crowd, many of which were dancing and waving white handkerchiefs: “Your country is so beautiful.”
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The Duchess went on to translate further remarks from Harry thanking the audience.
The couple were given a bottle of Viche, an alcohol local to the Pacific region of Colombia, as well as a wooden marimba, a local instrument similar to a xylophone, to remember the country’s music.
Before leaving the stage, the couple hugged the children’s choir.
Petronio festival is the world’s biggest celebration and display of Afro-Colombian music, drawing up to 500,000 people each year.
On Sunday night, throngs of partygoers dressed in colourful clothing, danced and sang to performances from some of the country’s top Afro-Colombian musicians.
The Duchess changed into a striking green and white dress for the festivities, while the Duke wore a blue linen shirt.
The final night of the event was battle of the bands, where groups from different regions of the Pacific Coast went head to head in a bid to win one of the festival’s coveted drum trophies.
The Sussexes spoke to some of the artists performing at the event before going on stage.
Alejandro Eder, the mayor of Cali, said he was “impressed” by the Duke’s Spanish which was “actually quite good”.
Mr Eder said he hoped the Duke and Duchess’s visit would help Colombia shake off its reputation as a dangerous country.
He said: “It’s actually quite an honour for us, and quite important that the Duke and Duchess came here… we need the world to start looking at us in a different way.
“I think it’s very important, because abroad, normally people think that Colombia is unreachable, that Colombia is an extremely dangerous country, that if they come here, you know something bad’s gonna happen. But Colombia is actually a wonderful country”
His wife, Taliana Vargas, said she gave the Duchess a bag made from sustainable materials.
She said the Duchess was “very happy to be here” and had a “humble and beautiful heart”.
Mr Eder, who met the couple, said the Duke had an “especially” strong handshake.
He told the Duke that the Princess Royal had visited Cali in the 1960s.
