Third Birthday on the Road...Salsatastic!

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Day 728 (27.03.09)

We'd come to Cali purely for the nightlife as we'd heard it was the centre of Salsa in Colombia and we thought this would be a great place to celebrate Chrissie's third birthday on the road.

With only one or two large group lessons lurking distantly in our Salsa history we decided that we really ought to brush up on a few moves if we were to be able to hit the dance floor with the style that we'd like! We booked a lesson with Jason at Academia de Baile and turned up with our dancing shoes ready to learn.

A few hours later we'd had a lot of fun, learnt lots of the basic steps and were beginning to be able to put them together. Jason said we'd all learnt very quickly and he was very impressed with our manoeuvrings but we think he probably says that to everyone!! Feeling a lot more ready to hit the town we left and headed out for a nice dinner as birthdays should really last for more than one day we think.

When we returned to our hostel we found that a large group were just getting started on an even larger amount of rum and when invited to join we couldn't resist! After supping on some highly potent drinks we all hit the town taking a taxi to the Praga club and dancing the night away to a mixture of salsa and dance music. A fantastic night where we tested our newfound skills to the max!

Day 729 (28.03.09)

The big day! Chrissie turned 30 this morning although she´ll still be sticking to the story that she's 21 just in case there's someone out there willing to believe her! Mark had organised a day of treats and after a lovely lie-in he whisked Chrissie and Vic into the posh spa that was next door to our hostel for a facial.

After being lotioned and exfoliated to their hearts content the girls emerged with glowing skin and were taken to the next destination, a local restaurant called Jordanes. Very smart compared to the places we usually eat we settled in and were treated like royalty by our cute little waiter who delivered to us the most melt-in-the-mouth Filet Mignon we could have desired. Accompanied by plenty of wine the food went down a treat and before we knew it most of the day had gone.

Back at the hostel and Chrissie opened some pressies from Mark before we got the bbq going for the evening's fesitivites. We teamed up with most of the others in the hostel and cooked a huge feast on the barbie followed by a large choclate birthday cake and candles (not quite 30 of them though!).

Most of our fellow guests were leaving ealry the next day so we were joined by Vic, an American guy called John that we'd met and our dance teacher Jason for a night out at Changos, another Salsa bar. You could not have kept us off the dance floor (except to top up our thirsty bodies with more rum) if you'd tried. We danced until dawn and had a fantastic time. A fitting end to a great birthday! (sorry there's very few pics, the camera battery ran out!)

Day 730 (29.03.09)

A little tired from last night's salsa action we woke up, packed up and set off to Popayan, a few hours south of Cali. We arrived to a vibrant orange sunset and got to the Hostel Trail, the only real backpackers in town, to find it a great place run by a lovely Scottish couple. The last two nights of celebration had caught up on us so after a bite to eat we settled down for a movie and bed.

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Comments

[AMY CARLINE]

You guys still looks like you are having a fab time. I think you may never return! Love to you both Amy x