The dancefloor is packed with sweating, gyrating bodies, moving in time to the music. Space is so limited that others are shaking their hips on chairs, tabletops, even the bar; no flat surface is spared. The music is an eclectic mix of salsa, vallenato, reggae, disco, and pop; even gringa Madonna gets an outing, predictably with the ever so slightly Spanish flavoured "La Isla Bonita". All around people are swigging rum, aguardiente (the local aniseed flavoured firewater, effectively a Colombian corruption of sambuca), and whiskey by the bottle. A truly surreal array of actors, or at least I think so, join the revellers in a bewildering selection of costumes. A faun, perhaps Mr Tunnus from C.S. Lewis' classic "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" prances across the floor, pausing to sniff various body parts of those he passes. An Indian travelling holy man, or sadhu, sashays around, theatrically begging for alms. A pair of conjoined twins, one black, the other white, one tall and thin, the other short and fat, one gay, the other straight, dance a depraved waltz, all the while making suggestive gestures to women and men alike. Despite it all, the crowd dances doggedly on. It's six thirty in the evening.
Part steak restaurant, part bar, part cavernous nightclub, Andres' Carne de Res is a Colombian institution, recently celebrating its 25th birthday. The staff here are all outrageously attractive; it seems quite feasible that those not fortunate enough to get a job at Andres' become Abercrombie models instead. Most of the customers are of a similar ilk, though the age ranges widely from the three or four year olds taking their first steps on the dancefloor, to the seasoned pros the wrong side of seventy. Like all Colombians, however, they seem to have a natural sense of rhythm. Like all gringos, however, I do not. Luckily no-one seems to notice, or care, the dancefloor being far too full to pay attention to anything except the pounding beats.
Away from the jiving mania on the floor, other Colombians are getting on with the serious business of drinking and eating. In this country it seems that just like in London's more anally exclusive nightspots, liquor is purchased by the bottle rather than the shot. Yet unlike at Boujis, Funky Buddha or Cristal this is not to promote an atmosphere of rarefied exclusivity or conspicuous consumption, instead it seems based on the undeniably economic and logistical advantages of buying in bulk. Rather than spending an aggregate couple of hours fighting to get to the bar each time you go out, most of the evening is spent enjoying the company, the food, and most of all the music. Nowhere I've ever been has had such an atmosphere of universal and unadulterated fun on a night out, except perhaps for Pamplona. Yet this was no once yearly fiesta, but an ordinary Saturday night.
We left Andres around 11 to head for a club in the centre of town. Here too was as similar story. A thousand plus people dancing, dancing, dancing, to everything from Colombian classics to old London favourite "Bomba" ("movimiento sexy..."). There's nothing quite like that feeling of realisation that you're singing along, out of tune of course, to a song whose lyrics you have absolutely no idea of. Except perhaps the feeling of realisation that you're singing along to a song whose lyrics you have absolutely no idea of, in a language you don't speak. I'm sure it was a great look for me.
Having said this, perhaps I'm selling myself short on the language (if not the singing voice). I just managed to convince Aerorepublica (a Colombian airline) that I had indeed bought my flight out of here to the Amazon a couple of months back on the internet, and that they did have the money after all. This morning in class we had a debate about global warming, in which I was quite able to articulate (in Spanish) that, in the immortal words of a fat 8 year old from Colorado, it's all a bunch of tree hugging hippy crap anyway. Not because I believe this obviously, but because it's fun to annoy those who wear hemp, bathe in vegetable oil, and postulate that cows farting is the primary cause of climate change.
Interestingly there is no word in Spanish, or Colombian Spanish anyway, for "tree hugger". Nor is there an equivalent phrase to "political correctness". This is just as well, because some of the conversations that seem to go on around the place are rather incompatible with the concept. In the UK I'm not sure you'd be allowed to discuss the striking physical similarities between aboriginal Australians and monkeys ("micos"), the inherent amusement value of the mentally handicapped ("mongolicos"), or the fact that people in Africa are clearly more stupid than people in South America. Yet I've heard all these viewpoints in the last couple of weeks. Not that Colombians are intolerant, just that they like to laugh, and no subject is considered out of bounds.
On which note, I'm sure any Colombians reading this won't begrudge me a gentle laugh at some of their countrymen. Just like in UK, where the proliferation of little girls named "Chardonnay" and "Champagne" reflects their parents' towering ambitions for their offspring to marry a footballer, Colombia has its own share of aspirationally-monikered juniors, most of them with an Anglo-American theme. Yet aside from the cringeworthy copies ("Leidy" is apparently popular), one example stands head and shoulders above the rest. In the desperately poor, devastingly violent province of Choco, on Colombia's remote northwestern Pacific coast, exposure to the outside world comes mostly courtesy of the strong American military presence in the area to protect the Panama Canal. Still, given the fact that the US "liberated" Panama, formerly a Colombian province, from Bogota's control in 1903, one might think local sentiment would be anti-imperialist. As it turns out. so warm are the feelings of local Colombians towards the Yankees, that many of their offspring have been gifted with American names. Statistically by far the most popular is the initially odd-sounding "Usnavy". Odd that is, until you think about what's printed on the side of "US Navy" vessels.
You really couldn't make this stuff up. On which note, I'm off to do my homework on the Pluperfect tense. I'll write again after my trip to Cartagena for the weekend, where aside from the World Heritage colonial architecture, I'll also hopefully find some Brazilians or Argentinians (ideally both) to watch the final of the Copa America on Sunday. They're billing it as "El Gran Clasico" here, and I for one can't wait. If you need entertainment in the meantime, check out the pictures below, or for a laugh, the following link from the BBC website. Apparently "British forces have denied rumours that they released a plague of ferocious badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra."
No, I didn't drink it all.
Akiel informs me Burberry has now reached Trinidad. I'm not sure about Tobago.
TGI Fridays - with inflatable dolls.
Dance instructor to me - worst job in the world?
Ah no, not quite.
Apart from the flags, Colombia is in no way like France
