Una, Dos, Tres...dance, dance dance.

In my last post I mentioned my lack of rythym and how the verb bailar (to dance) was unlikely to be very useful to me because of it. Somehow, this didn't actually stop me from showing up in the Latin Dance class the school runs every Thursday.

I should clarify that 'showing up' really means 'was dragged up the stairs by my teacher because they were one girl short and I was the only Chicka left in the school'. Talk about desperation. And where in the world, may I ask, is a dance class one GIRL short? If I learnt anything from Strictly Ballroom it's that girls are always doomed to dance with other girls. And Scott will be really mean to you about it when you ask to dance with him at the Pan Pacifics.

Anyway, it was fun, I managed not to maim anyone. In fact I was twirling like a pro in the end and even stopped leading. I think it{s really unfair to teach you the steps one way for 30 minutes, then make the girls do it all backwards. It is very confusing. It was made worse by teh fact the class was in Spanish and half the time I was confused about which way we were supposed to be going. If nothing else, however, I will now be able to count up to 7.

As a side note, wearing thermal underwear to dance class on a warm day was not one of my better ideas.

Went to Otalavalo last weekend were I went to an animal market (weird) and an 'indigensou crafts' market. I use inverted comas because I am not entirely convinced that people who buy live guinea pig to eat have a giant weaving thingy in their back shed to mass produce the lovely, authentic table clothes.

Went to the middle of the world and stood on the fake equator. And the allegedly real equator. Went up the Teleferiqo and saw Cotopaxi which was very, very cool. Apparently the mountain would be covered with snow if it was anywhere else in the world, because it is 4100m above sea level, but being equatorial, it is lush and green. Crazy!

I am actually very sad to be leaving Quito. Just got settled here, met heaps of great people and now I am heading off to Lima. And I hardly speak any Spanish. Argh!! Ah well. There are nice people everywhere. Except Romania, which I am still holding a deep seeded grudge against.