Torres de Cali

After a breakfast of egg sandwiches and catching up on the blogs we went out to get some food to make dinner. We have been meaning to make a dish called Pinto de Gallo since we left costa rica and since I had recently found a recipe for it on the internet we thought that we'd give it a try tonight. After our shopping it was time for some more practice so we went upstairs once more and this time we only moved the small table which still gave us enough room to practice without blocking everyone's way to the TV area. Practice went on until about 3.30 at which point we had to stop as we needed to get ready. We had agreed to meet Jacqui at the Torres de Cali hotel where her dance company was performing that evening and she had said that it started at 5. Of course as soon as Mae got in the shower we received a call from Jacqui to tell us that she had been wrong, it starts at 7 instead. This was good news for us though as it gave us time to make our dinner, which turned into a success, although we're not sure how close it tastes to the real thing. We then got changed into some smarter clothes and walked the mile or so to the hotel where we were immediately confronted by a security guard who jabbered away at us in spanish, we eventually told him that we had been invited by Jacqui and he told us to wait for her in the lobby. We sat down for about 5 mins before she arrived and we then proceeded up to the 41st floor where the event was taking place. Jacqui told us to go in, so we collected our free glass of wine proceeded into the room. It appeared to be a gathering of managers from the hotel chain all dressed up for an evening's entertainment of speeches, shows and gambling. We spent a little while looking out the window at the very impressive views of the city (I'm sure it's not half as impressive during the day!!) before a security guard came up and started jabbering at us. He told us that we were supposed to be waiting in the lobby and when we tried to tell him that Jacqui had arrived and we had come up with her he decided he didn't understand us. This meant we were forced to go back down to the lobby and were then told to wait there (in perfectly good English which he had suddenly discovered he could speak!!) while they went and talked to Jacqui. About half an hour later he came back and told us we were allowed to go into the event after all. So back up we went and arrived just in time for the toast, which we couldn't understand but at least we got more free wine. It was then time for the shows, considering they had only been learning some of them for 2-3days we were very impressed by the quality on display, they went on for almost an hour with us filming them all so we can show them to Jaqui later. They were mainly cabaret style shows and not salsa but fun to watch none the less. After the shows there was a buffet with amazing cakes and chocolate covered strawberries, ceviche pastries, stuffed potatoes and Chinese style skewers. We obviously went back for cakes several times. After the buffet we stood around chatting until we were sure that Jacqui wasn't going to make an appearance before deciding that we had no interest in business conversations we couldn't understand and no money to gamble so we called it a night.