Spilt liquids...

With the pressure of time now removed from my shoulders and with me being welcomed with open arms by Alex and his motorcycle club I sensed that many good experiences were just around the corner. How right I was. As it turned out Alex’s wife had just left for a month to visit her family in RjD and so he was free to show me around as the weekend approached... First up of some cracking nights out to all the right places was a local nightclub with Alex’s friend Jonathon onboard too. Now all cleaned up and with my mohican fully returned, once in I couldn’t have stood out any more if I tried. As for the club it was like nothing that I’ve experienced before by way of the music and dancing. This club was at the lower end of the scale apparently but my initial observation was that looks (or indeed language) were not of importance as the number one skill required to get the best from the night was dancing. And virtually everybody was doing just that. Over the fairly recent years I’ve given both Salsa and Ceroc a course or two of lessons but I quickly discovered that a weekly night in the Uxbridge Civic Centre is much like building and flying a paper aeroplane and then being sat in the cockpit of a 747. To say that I was out of my depth was a massive understatement and after a dropped beer can and several squashed toes I felt just like the 40 year old uncle embarrassing himself at the wedding reception. On second thoughts though with my 38th birthday now only a matter of days away and thanks to little Imogen I guess that it was a somewhat closer assessment of myself than I initially realised. Scary.
My last night of what turned out to be a week in Belem was another chance to impress the locals but this time joining me and Alex were...BJ and Lenny! I’d left BJ a couple of weeks ago with him heading along the coast and Lenny we met in Dakar Motors way back in Buenos Aires. Lenny is an alright American from New Jersey onboard a Kawasaki KLR and is always up for a beer and a laugh. And with the boat leg ahead of us the three solo riders have agreed to ride (onboard the boat at least) as one for the sake of cost and the loading/unloading of the bikes. Back to Belem then and with the four of us into another of the hot, live local music and dancing clubs I was more than happy to lead the way having acclimatised somewhat(!?) Fortunately for me this place was a little less about the individuals dancing skills with much congaing along with many other various big group dancing which was pretty easy to get involved with. Another bonus was the brilliant Flexa Junior and his band that finished the night with some more popular stuff at home that brought on much jumping around and singing to amongst other things Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance.' Sounds odd I know but what a great laugh... Finally after all this larking about I slept with a smile after what has been a superb week here in Belem. Can anything on this trip better this week..?
As for the town Belem itself, there’s not too much to report really. Of course it has the odd pretty building or two but mostly it’s a run down place that you don’t need to explore too much to find a dead rat. Also, even the blind don’t get off lightly as there’s one odour that’s seemingly inescapable here...