It’s not often that you tell a taxi driver where you want to go and he puts on music to suit. But when Carlos heard we were between clubs, heading to Buena Vista having just left La Habana, he knew exactly what was required. “Ah, you like salsa,” he declared, reaching to the glove compartment for a CD. “Me too!” Up the Ramblas, through Catalonia Square and past the architectural masterpieces of Gaudi, our midnight tour of Barcelona was to a Latino beat.

I was in Spain to save my love life. “There’s nothing more sexy,” an ex-girlfriend once said to me, “than a man who can dance.” I couldn’t; hence the “ex”. Determined not to let that happen again, I’d come to Barcelona for a weekend break with a twist. In fact, a break with a twist, a spin and other moves besides: a crash course in salsa.

My first taste had been earlier that day. In a dance studio just off the Ramblas, but straight out of Fame — 10ft mirrored walls and speakers the size of small cars — our instructors were assessing their new students’ abilities. The advanced not only knew what cross-body turns and enchuflas were, they could demonstrate them with their eyes shut. Intermediates had to prove mastery of the basic steps, while beginners, well, we weren’t required to audition: no point humiliating the inept.

So to our own small dancehall, where 14 of us novices — eight women and six men — would be taught by Augusto, assisted by his polka-dot-dressed translator and a floating coterie of dance advisers. There were two key things to remember, we were told. First, every move should fit within the basic four-step structure. Second, the man should always lead. The woman was the picture, her partner the frame. His job was to make her look beautiful.

We began — in a line — with that “basic” step: uno, left foot forward; dos, weight right foot; tres, left foot back; y pausa. Y cinco, right foot back; seis, weight left foot; siete, right foot forward; y pausa.

Hey, this was no harder than it looked. Even when paired with ever-rotating partners — Hannah, Karen, Jo and Jane — I had this off pat. The basic step? Didn’t faze me. The so-called “simple turn”? Piece of cake. Even the introduction of the enchufla was something I took in my dance stride.

Not that it was easy. Counting the steps while simultaneously moving in harmony with a partner was, a fellow student remarked, like taking a maths exam while performing synchronised swimming. But then he wasn’t a natural like me; the ladies wouldn’t be flocking his way. No, dancing was something that only a few of us were born to do. This was clearly in my genes.

Or so I thought until they turned on the music, and I went from “too damn hot” to “two left feet” in less time than it takes to say hokey cokey.

“Look at your partner,” Augusto called over the music, “look into her eyes and see love. Love and passion.” All I could see in the eyes of mine was fear. Fear, pain and the realisation that open-toed shoes have a significant downside. As for me — the flailing figure reflected in four mirrors — I was struggling to hear a beat and, as a result, was moving my feet (and hers) in an increasingly erratic sequence of steps. More ocho, dos, ouch, siete than uno, dos, tres, y pausa. Time, I felt, to see how the experts did it.

After a few beers with fellow students in Placa Reial, a big communal tapas and an evening siesta — our itinerary had time specifically set aside for “catching up on sleep” — we headed out at midnight for a first taste of pro salsa. Hidden down a Barcelona backstreet, La Clave is not the sort of place the average tourist would chance upon. With its small garden courtyard, the club looked, from the outside, more like an inconspicuous Renaissance home than a den of dance iniquity. Inside, though, was very different: a seething mass of bodies — like human snakes writhing in a pot. To start with, I hugged the walls almost as tightly as my mojito, watching in awe as the room exploded around me: a woman being whipped around in a rattlesnake of a move, another pulled tighter than a cobra’s coil. Tight, coloured dresses torn from the hip ballooned in the frenzied air.

For the novice women in our group, there was an easy option. Barcelona’s clubs have so-called “taxi dancers” for hire, who, despite my early suspicions, were not simply Catalan gigolos. What these men offered for €20 an hour wasn’t sex but something much more sensual: the best lead a woman could get.

Proficient they might have been, but they were stealing our women, and making them pay for the privilege. In the best British tradition, near-certain humiliation could not stop me from stepping in.

A salsa dancefloor is a funny place. From the outside it looks like an impenetrable jungle — all sudden arms and legs; spins as complex as cobwebs and more dangerous to boot. But stepping out onto the floor was like stepping into a Tardis. Space appeared. People wanted me to dance. Some — fellow students exhausted by the expertise of the taxi dancers — even wanted to dance with me.

Times recommends

• Bogus websites are conning hundreds out of their holidays
• The complete last minute holiday guide
• Croatia: the flashing blades of Korkcula