Cali

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I swear I could play sharads and get just about anything accross. Yesterday I was in a large supermarket and wanted to bye a Colombian adapter. I asked someone if they sold such a thing. At least I tried to. I ended up acting out a hair dryer connected to the wall which I was plugging the cord into and saying Colombian...while pointing at the 'wall' over and over again. At one point there were three shop assistants looking at me with an emotion somewhere between confusion and amusement. But hey, we got there in the end. Although no, despite all our hard work, they didn't sell them.

I think today will be my last day here in Cali. I woke up not long ago and feel a bit of an urge to move on. It has been sooo much fun staying in this city with new friends from all over the world and my new Colombian friends. We have a real community. There are a few Irish boys amoungst the crew and they are fleeing their country due to the economical situation in search of work elsewhere. I have met lots of Irish people doing this exact thing, and I am talking engineers and IT specialists. It is very sad that the country is under so much strain. On the bright side, the popular choices seem to be Australia and Canada, (after the South American experience), and these boys are cute, smart and most importantly HAVE AN IRISH ACCENT.

Friday night we went out to a traditional Salsa club, Cali is the capital of Salsa. During the day we had a 2.5 hour lesson in Salsa so we were able to try out our new moves on the dance floor, much fun was had. I realised the locals don´t actually follow the dance moves which we learnt but kind of do whatever they feel. It was really amazing to watch. At one point I was dancing with this man and after about five minutes of clunking on toes and generally feeling awkward, he offered up "you lead and I will follow?". Wow, I must have been struggling.

The Colombians dance in pairs and swap partners each dance. The odd thing is between each song, everybody leaves the dance floor so it is completely clear for the next song. That is minus the bunch of tourists dancing solo, in a circle, confused about why everybody else keeps leaving us.

There is stacks of plastic surgery here. Bum lifts and fake boobs can be seen in high quantity. To me it doesn´t look great but I guess it is the fashion. Saturday night we went to a party and danced the night away. It was the biggest night I have had in some time. I got home around 6am.

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