Dalama Adventures Tale of two corporate types ditching their jobs and traveling the world for 14 months... check out all photos, blogs & interesting tid bits at http://www.dalama.net

A benefit of the Spanish program here is the chance to participate in all types of cultural activities each day.  Tonight's big activity is salsa dance lessons at a local salsa bar.  One of the Spanish teachers is also a salsa teacher.  One of my goals for our travels through Latin America is not just to learn the language, but also to learn how to move like the locals on the dance floor.  That way, when we go out at night, we can fully participate in the local culture, which ultimately ends up on the dance floor moving with the locals.  Let it be known to all reading this, that I have absolutely no rhythm.  I can't dance... genetically speaking, the "bailar" gene was left out during those critical stages of cell reproduction, and I was born with a complete lack of ability to dance.  I can't even handle a basic aerobics class where you need to repeat dance moves in sequence.  I look like a robot when I do try.  It's also fair to say that Darrin has just as much talent as I do in this area.  So learning together is a good thing for us.  We hope to be able to blend in here, not look so out of place and "gringo."  So we head out with our new group of "young" school friends.  It's this youthfulness sense of adventure that we need to help us out on the dance floor.  We order a round of beers and quickly pound before exposing our complete lack of talent to others.  So here we are, out with our young, hip looking friends who are dressed in the all too cool jeans, nice tops and real "going out" shoes, and us, in our synthetic travel pants, sneakers, special sweat wicking shirts.  Not only do we feel awkward, but wearing these tacky synthetic travel clothes out to a hot and steamy Latin night club where people are dressed for sex in their painted on jeans, tiny tight tops and high heels, makes us feel even worse and out of place.  Darrin is convinced he can't learn because he doesn't "look good."  We give it a go, though, and after 30 minutes of instruction we're dripping with sweat, and still stumbling over the very basic steps:  uno, dos, tres... cinco, seis, siete.  Trying to make feet move, hips sway and arms move fluidly is way too much to do in parallel.  We've got the steps down, but still look like robots.  That said, we had a blast, and can understand why it's such a part of the social culture here.  I guess it will take us a bit more than one free lesson to catch on.