Sunday, May 5, 2013

1001 Atacama Nights - Saturday Night on the Town

Kate was so grumpy on Saturday night. We made dinner in the hostel and sat exhausted debating if we should really leave and hit the town or just pass out. We had been invited out by our Brazilian couple friends and this Miami yappy guy Luis, who we had met sandboarding that afternoon.

We rolled into Club Export at 10:30 to find our couple friends had saved us a seat alongside some Sao Paolo newlyweds. Awkwardly, we could barely converse between language barrier and sound barrier - the DJ bounced around cluelessly as she blared bad house music over our  corn salsa and pisco sours. Each couple on a bench, me, Thiago and the Brazilian woman were like the wives, chatting and facilitating some sort of English conversation, while our partners sat back and stared off, or nibbled.

Suddenly, a guy in a Zorro costume started dancing around the restaurant. After a while of our chatting, I was dared by my motley crew to go dance with him. He was probably 60 - I still went for it, maintaining a solid space between us but working the floor, eventually into conga line circles around the dining room.

Not sure if we were the real party starters, but within a few minutes, everyone left their tables, bills unpaid, and danced. The music got way better, but my awkward sandboarding injury hurt my already bad moves. I doubt anyone noticed and I didn't care - I was loving the crowd and the international hits and the singing locals. Kate's mood picked up too as we tried to keep up with the Brazilian wife's crazy dancefloor talent.

All of the sudden, a bottle broke and cut my pinky. This didn't hurt much and barely phased me because it was so random and unexpected and I was having a great time. Luis and his Argentinian friend celebrating her birthday came into the room and were thrilled to see more familiar places.

By 1:30 a.m., everyone started to wind things down, which was good since we'd been up for 22 hours at that point, and so had Thiago and Paulo. So, we were walked home by our gay Brazilian pololos, laughing the whole way about the silliest things, like the decked-out rims of Atacamanians' cars, the meaning of llama street signs, our new favorite local dessert shop, the amazing stars, and how to pretend you're just a confused tourist when approached by a scary local -solution: speak African click. The boys sent me and Kate reeling with giggles into our room, a perfect end to a wonderful weekend.

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