Gimme some rythm baby!

“Che preparateeee, vamos a hacer quilomboooo !! ” Ricardo screams into my ear, “Get ready, mate, we’re about to blow it”, would probably be the right translation. We have formed a big group of people on the dance floor and start jumping up and down and spinning. “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey,” most Argentines are smaller than me, but they have the same energy and endurance of Maradona during his best times. We all look curiously to the back entrance of the tent, and, just a few moments later, the bridal couple shows up, Miguel looks over to us, he starts jumping himself, lets Gigi’s hand go and runs like a wild bull towards us. The whole tent is in motion now and the DJ raises the volume of the music “… sos el amoooor de mi viiiidaaa”,”… you are the love of my life!” Yo Mickey, bachelors life is over, you are officially married now!

You may remember the original wedding invitation and the Bitcoin story. My idea to finance my trip to the wedding with the crypto currency had not worked out at all: shortly after I had invested into the Bitcoin, pretty much every single crypto currency had made an unprecedented decline. Nevertheless, I wanted to go to the wedding, I actually had already taken that decision back in Buenos Aires. However, I still wanted to have some fun and decided to tell Miguel and Gigi that I would not be able to come. Carlos, an old friend from Indonesia, supported me with my plan and organized everything: my accommodation, a fake RSVP and my name on the guest list, to make sure the surprise would work out perfectly. The part I had most fun with was writing my emotional cancellation message, but Miguels face was without any doubt my personal highlight, when I finally stood in front of him, he could not say anything more than “Jorgitoo, you are here?!?! Eeeeh…I thought…”, before putting a big fat smile on his face, you should have seen his expression, the outcome was wonderful, yes, priceless and just exactly as I had imagined it!

After a short ceremony in the church, we move together with all the wedding guests to an estate near San Salvador de Jujuy, where we are welcomed with lots of food and drinks. In the estates garden the civil ceremony takes place before we start with the actual wedding meal – Argentine beef, what else! Once we finish eating, pretty much everyone moves on to the dance floor. The first dance, a waltz with the bride and her father, is the only I recognize. Once they are done, the party and the dances get wild and we freestyle. After ten weeks in South America, I was convinced I had somehow become a decent dancer, but more than one of the wedding guests did not miss out on the opportunity that this was not the case: “Come on, you have to move your hips more” is what Diego, one of the guests, told me several times. When he realizes that I’m not listening to him, he gets me a Fernet-Cola. Octaviano doesn’t appreciate my dancing style either and asks his wife to dance with me. After some Fernet-Colas and almost an hour of private lessons, my hips are finally relaxed enough and I am ready for the rest of the evening! We are having a lot of fun, everyone dances wildly, there is rock music, Reggaeton, Fernet-Colas and Gin Tonics, sunglasses, party fog and even more Fernet-Colas: Argentinians definitely know how to party and how to dance!

The wedding in Jujuy was not the only highlight in the month of March. Just two weeks before, a dream had come true and I had crossed the Ecuadorian-Colombian border. Colombia was able to withstand the high expectations I had: my first stop was Cali, and the first thing Gustavo and I did, when we arrived was booking an appointment at the dance school to learn Salsa. Next to my dance teachers, I felt like a blind man in a colour study class, but nevertheless we had a great time and that very evening we could even try out our new dance moves at the Topa, one of Cali’s most famous salsa clubs, even if we must have looked like some fifth division football players trying to join a Champions League game. I really fell in love with Cali, the city is somehow exciting, full of life and passion, but at the same time not aloof, in the night clubs everyone dances with everyone , people talk to each other on the street just like in Naples, and even though there is a high crime rate – in Cali alone there were twice as many murders in 2017 as in all of Germany – I didn’t experience anything bad, I felt much more comfortable and welcome than in the highly praised Medellín, my next stop.

Medellín is known above all for its consistently springlike climate, its incredibly beautiful people and of course Pablo Escobar, who has contributed a great deal to the fact that it also has a very bloody past: In the mid-1990s, almost half a percent of the population was murdered annually, more than 3 out of 1000 people per year. Luckily, in the last years, Medellín has become a tourist hotspot and one of the safest cities in Colombia. Its development was much faster and more drastic than the one of Eastern Germany. When I arrive at my hostel, I happen to meet Claire, one of my Australian companions from my road trip in northern Argentina a few months before. Full of joy we explore the city together and go out on the first evening, a wonderful night, but we also get to know one of Colombia’s ugly sides.

After a few drinks in the Poblado, the touristy pub are around Parque Lleras, we decided together with a few more travellers to go to Palmahia, a night club just a few kilometres away. Apparently in Palmahia there are less gringos and I was excited to practice my salsa steps again. But as soon as we get into the taxi, we run into a police checkpoint. Two heavily armed officers get us out of the car, take our IDs and start to search us from bottom to top. The control was stricter than Berghain’s door policy. After a few minutes they find a straw in one of the pockets of guy from New Zealander who was in the second taxi. From their point of view, a straw is enough evidence that he was about to do drugs.

All of the sudden, the two policemen stop searching us, they stand up in front of us and start a long monologue that drug use is a serious offence and that they would have to take the kiwi guy to the police station, unless we wanted to settle the whole thing directly with them, which of course, would be much easier. Since I am the only one of the group that speaks Spanish and since our friend is getting a little pale, I assure myself that I have understood everything correctly and ask them how much we had to pay to settle everything on the spot. The policeman, with the most polite and professional tone, just tells me that we should make a suggestion. After a short back and forth, I finally offer him to pay 50 thousand pesos, a little less than 20 US dollars. However, what I did not know is that the officer had also taken all the kiwi’s money and that he therefor knew exactly how many pesos we had. He looks at me, and eventually takes 100 thousand. Shortly after he starts to smile, says “Muchas gracias” and wishes us a good time in Medellín. Until today I have not found out if the New Zealander really had drugs on him, but I know for sure that the only robbery I had experienced in almost four months in South America was committed by two Colombian police officers.

The day after the wedding – after my time in Medellín I had travelled by plane via Cordoba to Jujuy to attend the wedding – I had decided to visit Chile at least for a few days, of course, far too little for the eternally long country. After an impressive bus ride across the Andes and through the Atacama Desert, I arrive in Calama, but really just to catch a plane to Santiago. In Santiago, Felipe and Niki, two travel buddies I had met in Bolivia were waiting for me. I do some sightseeing in the city centre, I eat an incredibly tasty ice cream with Niki in the Lastarria district and I get an idea of the country. Compared to all the nations I had seen so far, Chile is different: it is highly developed and incredibly industrial. It actually reminds me both of Western Australia and Europe. On our last evening as we go out dancing, no salsa, no Latin American rock, no reggaeton, no, we go dancing psychotrance. Also, Santiago did not change my mind, that psychotrance is not my kind of music at all, but nevertheless, we enjoy our night out, after all, on the following day I would be going back to Colombia, the salsa country by definition. And as we shake our bodies, I realize that I have never danced as much as in March, gimme some rythm baby!!