Bailamos!!!

I went back to Yana Cocha after posting yesterday from town. Jorge introduced me to some friends of his from college who were visiting for the weekend. David asked if I would be interested in going to a birthday party later that night. I wasn't particularly interested but figured I should at least go for a short time, and catch a cab back early since I was planning on leaving early this morning.

We started the night by grabbing a great dinner at Jorge's family restaurant. The group expanded significantly as more and more of Jorge's friends arrived in Puyo. The party continued back as Yana Cocha so the girls could get ready while the guys chatted and drank beers. Jorge has a bar at his place with a tribute to Che (Jorge lived and worked in Cuba for a year). Try to remember this girl in the yellow, she comes up again later (although I don't know her name).

For the party, Alex's (the birthday guy) friends had rented out the main room of the local architectural school (really cool, nice venue). Everyone came in and sat around in a circle and just sat listening to salsa.

It was the start of what I thought was going to be a short boring night. Before long, two by two, people started to get up and dance. A guy came around serving whiskey and water... After a few of those, I got fed up, grabbed a bottle of Pepsi and introduced Ecuador to whiskey-colas.

That got us dancing. The gringos entered the dance floor and showed South America how it's really done! (not really, but it was really funny to see them react to our style of dance, and for those of you who have seen it and are wondering, yes I did break out the MC Hammer dance!)

I grabbed Jorge's girlfriend and took her on to the dance floor to salsa.

After about an hour, I was pretty worn out.

The music stopped and to everyone's surprise, the birthday boy dawned a blue wig, grabbed the guitar, and we were treated to live music for the rest of the night.

Things got crazier as the whiskey began to set in.

The group formed some sort of Irish-looking dance circle and started to chant and dance. By this point, I was singing along (not knowing any of the words!)...

The girl in yellow (from earlier) decided she was going to latch on to me. I wasn't bothered, she was cute. She took it upon herself to expand my dancing horizons with Merengue lessons, Samba lessons, and some fun new Salsa moves!

After some dancing, I needed some air so we danced our way outside. It was really nice and cool, and it was raining. We decided to walk out into the rain.It was very movie cliche but they we are after dancing for hours, out in the rain, and started to kiss. After a while of that, we both wanted to go back inside to dance. Another hour or two of dancing and we were back outside again. To be honest, there wasn't much in the form of conversation, but it was fun, and despite the 'small' problem of her being short and my neck hurting from leaning down to kiss her, it was a great night.

After we went back inside, she got a call from her boyfriend! At that point she started to cry and was saying how guilty she felt. Not wanting to get entangled in some sort of Ecuadorian love triangle, a kissed her on the forehead good night, and David, Jorge, and I headed back to Yana Cocha. It was just after 4 in the morning, and I had originally planned to leave by 8...

Here I am at just after 9, not particularly pleased about being awake but ready to get going.

All in all, it was a great night and I was really happy to have a part of an authentic Ecuadorian party experience.

Love
Kent