Las Americas - Night of music

Last night Alia and I and Ana Maria the director of the bilingual Kindergarten where she works went out on the town to Las Americas. We were celebrating Feliz dia Mamita together over Cervezas and traditional Bolivian music. Bustling elder Bolivian waiters with big wide faces wearing black vests and bow ties scampered back and forth between tables serving beer to the patrons in big liter glass bottles. They carried four in one hand with the necks of the bottles crunched in between their fingers and 2 in the other. All the tables had bottles piled in the middle of the table. I ordered the Huarachi which turned out to be a Bolivian Pilsner which was basically the taste of a Miller in the states and that I normally I wouldn´t have liked but it tasted soo good in the company of this Bolivian night life and the sounds of the traditional pan pipes and drums and guitars.

Bolivia is big on meat. The waiters brought out these mass black grills with steaming heaps of meat, thighs, frankfurters, shanks.......etc...to the tables. I think I know why all the stray dogs here look so well fed. There is no way you can eat a full plate of the food they serve you. It is too big! We ordered Sil Panchu and shared a ´small´ order between the three of us and could not finish it. It was big meaty gravy chunks of beef with fried potatoes, peppers and tomotoes piled on top. Too much food! I hope the two Springer Spaniels that wandered in and out of the Restuarante enjoyed our leftovers.

The music was awesome. The first group was from Sucre, and were a traditonal Bolivian group of 8 with all sorts of guitars, drums, pipes, flutes etc... Bolivinos would get up and dance between the tables and start clapping to certain passages of the songs. Group 2 was an electrified traditonal folk group. Guitar, electric violin, and synsethiezer that made the sound of pan pipes. It was wierd how they were still able to get the tradional sound through the use of electronics and the patrons seemed to respond equally to the music as they sang and clapped and started to dance en masse. We left about 1 a.m., right when the next group was arriving with brass instruments and accordian. We were just too beat to stay longer.

Today we are hitting the market and doing chores and errands.