I can’t decide if I enjoyed Wednesday night or Friday night more because both were a blast. On Friday night I limited myself to just a quarter of a cup of rum and coke. I originally planned to attend a birthday party that night. While working at a café during the day I met an Ecuadorian guy my age, Henry, who invited me to come to a friend’s birthday that night at one of the discos.
But after just a little bit of free rum and coke I left with Thierry, a 30 some year old French speaking Swiss man that night instead who invited me to come out for some drinks with some friends from a jungle tour he had returned from that day.
We met this odd mix of people at the main plaza for drinks. There was a cool 50+ Irish man, a rude 70+ Canadian woman, a nice mid 20’s Welsh woman, and a 50+ Swiss man.
Thierry was a lot of fun to go out with because together we had a great time meeting different women, starting with a pair of Ecuadorians at the bar for a few minutes until I went to help out the Irishman with his bill. He was not expecting to pay $8 for his Cuba Libre drink and so I acted as his translator.
We headed to a restaurant after the bar and that is where I received my first hint that there was something off with the 70+ Canadian women, Angela. During a pleasant conversation with all of us she brought up politics.
I hate George Bush. He’s such an idiot. He has done so much wrong in the world. You know America is going down, right? Yeah, it’s really turning into a really a bad country. I mean, Obama is great. But Bush he’s an awful person. America is on the decline. It’s an awful country you know.
She continued with her rant until I told her that I realize people have strong opinions about politics but this is not an appropriate time to talk about it. Surprisingly it is not nearly as common as some might think for travelers to discuss American politics. Nearly everyone I encountered during the past three years of travel are not anti-America and certainly do bring up politics out of the blue like this woman.
We went to the same disco from Wednesday night, Bungalow 6, which was packed as usual. Like at the bar before, Thierry and I headed off from the group and met a pair of Ecuadorian girls that we danced with for a while. And just like Wednesday I had a ton of fun dancing with this Ecuadorian woman to the music: salsa, reggaeton, etc.
But after some time in walked the girl whose number I got from Wednesday. We made eye contact and smiled so I excused myself to go to the bathroom so I could find the girl who was really more my type. But as it sometimes happens, I screwed myself over when I could not find either girl.
Meanwhile, half of our group had called it a night and left but Angelica, the 70+ Canadian woman stuck around with Thierry, the Welsh girl, and myself until the disco closed at three. Angelica had a ton of energy and I enjoyed watching her dance reggaeton with a few guys a quarter of her age.
The four of us moved on to Blues, an afterhours disco in a different part of the city. As Thierry and I walked around the club I saw a really beautiful girl and so I ditched him to go talk to her. Her name was Diana and we spent the next hour and half together until she left the disco with her friends. I would like to see her again so I plan to call her this week.
Later on I met the strangest woman and a few days later I still can’t figure out what her deal is. Every ten minutes while we were talking one of her male friends would say hello to her. But instead of the friendly kiss on the cheek it was a kiss on the lips. I think she introduced one of the guys as her brother. Other than this strange behavior she was otherwise an educated, attractive woman dressed normally. I just can’t figure it out.
While we came as three we left as four people in the taxi because Angelica, managed to land herself a younger Ecuadorian man in his late 30’s or he was a prostitute. They went back to her hotel together.