This morning I woke up with a few mosquito bites which is to be expected as it rained last night and the high temperatures has hatched a few mosquitos around the area.
After having yet another cold shower we head into town and have an empanada (much like a Cornish pie) for breakfast. It was huge! I prefer the smaller ones as the pastry is thinner and they are juicier.
We get on a bus as I’ve told my gatita I’ve never been on a bus in Colombia and wanted to live the experience. She explains why the bus driver is handing over some papers at one of the bus stops. It turns out that in the midst of all the chaos of bus driving, the drivers have to meet very strict timescales and arrive within a margin of time at different points of there daily route. If they don’t, the bus driver’s license is revoked for a few days and they get fined. This happens as the bus service is run privately but it’s the Government who tries to ensure a good service and hence the inspectors.
We buy an outfit for my gatita; A white elegant top for the party tonight and I buy fatigue pills as I honestly do not want to go through the same hell I did coming here by coach.
My gatita took an entertaining photo of me in the centre of Bucaramanga. One of my work colleagues got a photo of a place in the centre of Bucaramanga and sent it to me via email as a laugh. They of course edited the photo and included a picture of me having a beer. As a bit of fun we stopped at the exact same place and I tried to get the same angle and my gatita snapped the photo. I will send the photo by email to the office see if they get the same laughs I did. I am sure they will.
We eat at the Exito supermarket self service and then relax back at the hotel (I had another cold shower) then we watched TV and got ready for the party which is at 8pm (although in typical Latin style everyone is fashionably late). At least that’s what I am told by my gatita.
We go to her house in taxi and indeed are the 1st to arrive at 8:15pm. Slowly but surely her family (uncles, aunts & cousins start to arrive).
In Colombia you do not normally give kisses just handshakes and you usually greet anyone saying “mucho gusto” which is in short “pleasure to meet you”. Slowly but surely and after many mucho gusto’s jejeje I got to meet everyone related to the mothers side of my gatita.
Everyone danced all night! I was not brave enough to dance to any of the typical music including Salsa and fast Vallenato but it was quite impressive to watch jejejeje. In particular two uncles of my gatita they were like experts on the dance floor. Slowly the younger cousins and sisters took to the dance floor in the living room and basically displayed to me how Reggaeton and other typical Latin music is danced. I even had the pleasure of watching an entertaining dance off between two of the cousins. This was made even better when the older uncle stepped in between them and did some moves of his own which was very funny and kept everyone cheerful (as if Colombians need to be cheered on anyways jejejeje).
My gatita was embarrassed and didn’t want to dance with me as I have been for 3 weeks fooling around with some moves of my own (so imagine jejeje). But needs be as everyone wanted to see us on the dance floor, so it was inevitable and we danced to the slower Vallenatos embraced closely together of course.
As a surprise and as my gift to her sister we booked a group of mariachi’s to sing at her sisters wedding. I have attached a link here although its quite big some might find it entertaining. http://www.gibraltardarts.com/fifteenth.zip. There are more photos but I have included just some I relate to in this blog entry. It cost me 130,000 Pesos which is around £38.00 and they sang around 6 songs in total. The group was formed of 6 members so much cheapness. My dad has a group in Gibraltar “Los Jaleos” and quite frankly for £38.00 I don’t think they would even take out the guitars as its not worth it. Obviously over here 130,000 Pesos is good money even if shared between 6. I must add that we did get a good price as the manager is the uncle of my gatita.
The Maricahi's was a surprise too for my gatita's father and mother as we had arranged it with her aunty so it was a nice addition to everyone as only we knew about it.
Closer to 12pm and a few agua ardientes’ later (and beers). The food came out. I finally got to eat Lechona which is a stuffed pig with rice and different meats such as chicken served with a large piece of crackling.
Her aunties also didn’t want to let me leave without dancing with me so they instructed the DJ (her uncle) to play some slow ones. They used this opportunity to ask me as many questions as possible which I answered of course. It was quite funny to be put under interrogation in such a nice way of course jejeje.
At 2am we had to say goodnight even if the party was still going strong as we needed to wake up early to head back to Bogota as I have to go to the Embassy the following day. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the Apartment and yes butt naked another cold shower and the fan at full steam jejeje.
As a final note any party in Colombia goes on and on and continues until the last man standing decides to call it a night and the music is not lowered at any point even if the police are called in!!!! Different eh!!!!!
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