Club 69

Just when my diary is almost full and I think I won't have to spend anymore tiresome hours writing tedious accounts for my blog, Isi buys me a pressie - a new diary complete with fresh pens! How thoughtful. Thanks Isi!

I meet Isi and Michelle for breakfast (at 14:30!), it's raining. I order Brekkie wanting coffee and toast. I get hot chocolate and cake. My Spanish still sucks. We all trudge through the heavy rain and the resulting road rivers to a beauty salon. Shelly wishes to turn her hair blue and I'm after a massage. (I've had muscular pain in the left side of my back for a few weeks now.) Elaina, the masseuse, comes recommended by Isi and WOW is she good! She was very technical and moved effortlessly around the table working the golf ball sized knots out of my back. I had to choke back bursts of laughter several times as she relentlessly racked the back of my ribs with her elbows to the point of extreme pain. And then there's the time where she tells me to relax at the same time she's trying to snap my neck and rip my head clean off! The net result is that I exit feeling very spaced out. It lasted a very long time. It's a good thing, no!?

Most of the truck go to an "all you can eat" grill place in the evening. Well, as I've been doing that for the past month I don't feel the need to partake. In fact, I've been trying to slim down my portions - not increase them!

The girls and I use the Metro underground to get to an Indian curry house, Kathmandu. As Madras was off the menu I order a Vindaloo. Despite not being spicy hot in the slightest, it was most excellent. We all want to go to Club 69, described as "Electronic music for the freaks, the sophisticated and the office worker". We decide that Shelly, dressed up in sparkly blue makeup, blue hair and a tight polka dot blue dress is the freak. Isi and I are still arguing over who's the sophisticated one. ("You are!" "No, I'm not, you are!")

Isi is well in the mood for a good bounce on the dance floor and refuses to eat food in case it spoils her alcohol fuelled "buzz". She also claims that everyone who eats before going out falls asleep and goes home before 01:30. (In the words of Bugs Bunny, "She not know me very well, do she now!") So with hyper Isi bouncing down the road like a pogo stick on speed we wander down Cordoba St looking for a pre-club bar. Club 69 doesn't even open until 01:00! Cordoba St sucks. It is dead. The only places serving alcohol are cafes and even they close up as they see us approaching. We do find us a bar down a side street though and I get concerned when Isi, with her visible hyper personality change, orders herself a Vodka & Speed! (Speed = energy drink, think Redbull. They call a spade a spade here!) But I soon forget about that when she orders me 2(!) large Gin & Tonics, Shelly a cocktail and a bottle of white wine for us all to share.

On entering the club (at 02:30) Isi impresses the guy in front with her Spanish and receives a free ticket. Shelly and I have to pay 25 pesos each. Inside Isi does her pogo stick impression and disappears in to the heaving throng. (Is this a girl after my own heart or what!?) I buy drinks for Shelly and I. The music is disappointing - slow and soulless. But still, I'm clubbing!

Argentinean blokes are a dodgy lot. Shelly had her drink spiked and instantly almost blacked out - but recovered after a tactical chunder and left early (she only mentioned the incident to us the next day). Dance Diva Isi was being constantly felt up on the dance floor all night - I even had to forcefully remove a couple of hands from her. She discovered that if we bounced close together then the hands tended to keep away. The club had this paper cannon which blasted out bursts of reflective pieces of paper over the dance floor at the crescendos of songs - it looked really cool. A couple of other fellow truckers turned up and disappeared throughout the night, spending most of their time in the chill out / gay room.

Come 07:00 the club closes and Isi and I exit with a very hammered John, a fellow trucker, and grab a taxi. John immediately falls asleep. He wakes up half home and shouts to the taxi driver to stop and bails out thinking we've overshot the hotel. Isi and I have to manhandle him back into the taxi and convince the taxi driver to keep going. Drunken fool! Breakfast had just started to be served at the hotel and John helps himself. Isi and I have other plans...

Posted by Steve Eynon