DJ ATM

After waking the next morning we drove the last 40 miles to Fairbanks the next city along form Anchroage, a mere 350miles away!! With the clouds clearing we finally saw McKinnley, It is completly white and stands apart from all the other mountains like someone dropped it by mistake! When we reached Fairbanks we got in touch with DJ ATM (Jose) who was at the Salsa Festival in Anchorage and he agreed to give us a few ideas of what to look at in Fairbanks. We met in a small coffee shop opositethe University Campus. He told us about a river boat trip that evening that he was several of the local Salsa dancersw were going on so we decided to take a trip on that, he also informed us that there were no official Salsa partyies in Fairbanks that weekend but that he would try to organise one at someone's house for the saturday. Before that we decide to have a look round Pioneer park another of Jose's suggestions. In this park there are whole made up vilages and several museums as well as an old paddle boat and a lot of old mining equipment left over from the gold rush when Fairbanks was founded. It is quite odd but a lovely place to hang out on a sunny afternoon. It was then time to get changed for the river boat so we drove to the place we would be staying for the weekend which belongs to Jose's friends Jeff and Joe. Turns out it is a fully equiped B&B which we have all to ourselves for free!! It was absolutle beutifull with a balcony overlooking Fairbanks and even a Dance Studio!!!!!!!! It seems that Salsa people in Fairbanks are as mad as those back home. After changing we drove down to the river where we boaded the boat. Here we met with Jeff and Joe whose house we were staying at and Bill and Rita who's house the party would be at the next day. Bill was very disapointed that we woudn't be staying long enough to give him some crossbody lessons as all the teachers in Fairbanks dance cuban style they don't have organised lessons as such they just share info with each other when they learn something new. While travelling along the river we saw had fun watching the local jetskiers whizzing about and admired the huge houses built on the banks, some with planes parked on the driveway!! So the actual point of this boat ride (other than as a party) is to see the meeting of the rivers. This isthe point where the water from a local Glacier joins the Chena River. The Glacier run off uis clar blue whereas the Chena river is a fairly usual brown, where these two meet you can see the two coulors swirling around as they merge toghether, it's quite amazing! On the ride back Jose managed to get us a salsa played and we all had a dance! People seemed to enjoy my idea of swapping partners throughout the song. We then kept dancing to the usual music untill we got back to the landing. At this point we decided that it would be nice to go for a meal at a local Thai restaurant called the Lemon grass.ngs and more S Mae ordered a mild coconut based chicken curry and I had an exstreamly hot chicken broth, both dishes were delicious! While waiting for our food Jose decided to play some music so we all ended updancing in the restaurant, these guys just dance wherever they go! We even managed to get a Tango! Then it was time for some rest before we headed to the Chena hot springs the next day which is just around the corner at only 50 miles away!