Time to dance!

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This is the one you´ve all been waiting for! My first weekend in Cochabamba! What crazy antics will I get upto......what did I do? I made friends!!! On saturday morning I was boring and had a lie in...getting up at 6.30 every morning when your my age really does take its toll...its murder. Then I thought I would go to the market....alas it was about 11 when I finished breakfast and lunch with my host mother is at around 1ish, and I really want to spend the day there (at La Cancha-the market). So I ended up entertaining you, my followers with stories about my week! After Lunch...which was a delicious dish called ´sil plancho´a meat, rice, salad meal.... I was certain that I would go to La Cancha, but as I was waiting for a taxi/trufi a little rascal on the back of the motorbike hit me with a waterballoon. Now this was surprising, just imagine it...your standing on the side of the road (minding your own business) when you notice a teenage boy smiling at you on the back of a motorbike, you think ´what a nice chap, I will smile back´, this is before you notice the small blue missile in his hand which is soon hurtling through the air at you at 30 mph. By the time I saw it I had enough time to turn my shoulder into the missile (like you would for a tackle in a rugby match) but the aim was good and he hit me in the neck. OUCH!
So now I´m waiting for a trufi, in pain and wet, and it starts to rain...not hard but just enough to add salt into the wounds. I eventually got bored as the 50th trufi went past and didn´t stop (i later realised that they were full...its quite hard in this country as they are expected to hold 6 passangers, 2 in the front and 4 in the back) and decided to walk into town. Something which I have done 5 times since. It´s a pleasant walk past the stadium, over the bridge, round the roundabout with all the flags (plaza de banderas), down the main avenida (its got a garden with walk ways in the middle of the road...very pretty and an excellent place for water balloon fights as Ive discovered!) known as el prado to plaza Colon. From here you walk down 25 de mayo til you reach Calle Sucre...they you take a right and reach Plaza Principal. Its a beautiful square surrounded by the cathedral, the governors house (prefectura) and other old buildings. The square is really 4 gardens separated by paths....in the middle there is a plynth with a Condor on top, on one side of the condor is a stunning fountain and on the other a square of tiles where people dance...sing or shout about religious or political things! What seems like hundreds of stalls, beggars and buscars surround the square and the paths within it and on most days...at most times there are no free spaces on the benches! Well I walked there...around and back, thinking that was the end of my saturday...

But NO!! Because no sooner had I walked in the door, the telephone started to ring...i picked up and on the other end was another volunteer! They do exist!!! She was one of many....Isabel, Eva, Fransiska and Melanie (now we have Charlotte and Philip) and she was inviting me to go out with them all! Fantastic!
Its now 9pm and Im at the agreed meeting place, a bar called Casablanca, and I suddenly realise I only know what one of them looks like...So I quickly give her a call....shes 5 minutes away but the others are inside, I said I would wait for her rather than run through the bar shouting out their names! Anyway Im quickly settled as they are all german and all speak english, not soon after Jorge my spanish teacher arrives and we´re ready to put his local knowledge to the test.
We all decide on going to a club called La Tirana...a 2 tiered building with good music...the only problem is is that it is a) far away and b) packed when we get there. So we head back to where we were and a little club/bar called Planchos. This is where it gets interesting....after a couple of drinks a song comes one and everyone apart from me gets excited....whats going on i think to myself...This was the start of my relationship with Salsa, 30 seconds later i´m on the dancefloor with eva and melanie and they are teaching me the moves, the steps and the twirls! Its amazing...its a real skill and enjoyable to learn, well I cant tell if I was good or not but apparently not bad but certainly worse than jorge. Anyways time has run out for me here and I will be back tomorrow to continue this epic tale about my adventures into the land of salsa and the start of my lessons (which im off to now)....ciao!!!

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