Salsa at El Huevo (The Egg!)

Getting up at about 10 having been quite tired from walking with our bags and around the town the day before, we made fried egg sandwiches for breakfast which were delicious. We then spent far too long trying to find reasonably priced hostels for the remainder of our stay in Chile on the internet. It seems the further North you go, the pricier they get and we had only had replies of 'sorry unavailable' from the many couch requests we had sent out previously. This is a real shame as its places like san pedro de atacama where staying with a couchsurfer would be ideal as it will be difficult to see anything besides the touristy stuff and get behind to the real people and lifestyle. Anyway, we finally dragged ourselves out the door at about 1.30 and went down to the waterfront to have a look at the sea and harbour which is a very busy place with many large container ships down to tourist boats and tiny little fishing boats in bright colours. After looking through the overpriced tourist market here we headed back inland slightly to see the 'Armada de Chile' which is the seat of the admiralty and a very impressive, pale blue, distinctly German looking building set in front of what could have been a large parade ground housing a memorial to the Heroes of Iquique. This memorial is very large and as well as having an eternal flame, also has a sailor guarding it...which tourists take advantage of to get pictures with him! From here we went to a very new tourist information centre with fantastic staff who not only spoke a bit of English but also were very helpful, going so far as looking things up on the internet for us and asking around until they found somewhere we could salsa that evening!! We wandered back through the streets towards the hostel, passing an Arc de Triomphe and lots and lots of grafitti on the walls, some very artistic and pleasant to look at, but mostly mindless, senseless scrawl adorning all and any buildings even including the many churches to be found here! Once back at the hostel we made spaghetti bolognaise...nom!! then rested a bit before going out to find club El Huevo which is spanish for 'The Egg' where we had been told they had a salsa room. The club is huge, possibly an old warehouse or something and as we arrived early, about 10.30, we were one of the first ones through the door paying the cheaper entrance price of $4 each which included a drink..very reasonable! We went to the bar and got our free drinks then stood around in the 1st clubroom which seems as yet unfinished, until at 11.00 they opened the next level of the club. We headed up to the 1st floor where we found 2 rooms each of a fairly good size (bigger than Bar Sun!!) playing various clubbing music and in one of which people were setting up for some kind of band. We hung around here, alternating between the 2 as the music changed until 11.30 when finally they opened the next floor and we went up another flight of stairs at the top of which was a lovely big room with plenty of light, lots of tables and chairs at either end, a tiled (clean) floor and SALSA!!! Andy wanted to explore the rest of that level but I dragged him in and told him we'd look round later after some dancing. We found a table to sit at but were soon up on the huge floor where several other couples were dancing crossbody as well which was brilliant as we really need to practise, so much cuban style has ruined our ability to stay on a line properly. Between dances we watched the other people and saw that some of them were pretty good, a lot of them danced On2 which surprised us and there were even a couple who looked like they were probably teachers. Before long I went up and asked a guy to dance and had a super time dancing with someone different and having to think again, not being able to anticipate is good for me, the fact that it was On2 as well made it all the more challenging! The night progressed with me gradually asking pretty much all of the men to dance and while Andy got plenty of dances too there were some ladies who refused to dance with him which was a shame as they looked to be the best dancers. It always makes me angry when women do this, just because they dont know someone, they wont dance with them, I think its because they are actually crap and can only dance with a few people who's moves they know and therefore wont look stupid when they screw up...but hey, their loss as Andy was definitely one of the best I danced with that night! There was plenty of bachata as well as salsa which we enjoyed dancing to even though they did play them in blocks of about 8 songs mixed together, making a good 15-20 minute dance which at the end of we were exhausted, again, not enough practice! Twice during the night a line up dance was taught by a guy who unfortunately I never got a chance to dance with, including salsa, bachata, meregue, cha cha cha, samba and a couple of pop songs that seem to have simple routines that go with them. These proved very popular and got everybody on the dancefloor including all the people who couldnt dance salsa of which there were many who apparently like this room as you can sit down with your drink, see who you're talking to and watch people dance! By about 4.15 we were shattered and having only been asked to dance once (by one of the really good guys who I asked earlier on) we decided to call it a night and before leaving went to have a quick look round the remainder of the club. On the same level as the salsa there was a reggaeton type room and another clubbing music room, up yet another flight of stairs was another clubbing room (they all play different types of clubbing music, some trance, some pop, some dance etc) and the roof terrace which is huge and from where you can see the whole of the bay and the hills behind speckled with lights, making it one of the most beautiful clubs we've been to! After taking some pictures we headed back down the 4 lots of stairs and slowly walked the mile or so back to the hostel to collapse into bed at 5am!!