The hotel is three star and the facilities include 3 outdoor pools, 1 indoor pool, gym, games rooms, bars and God knows what else. According to a notice in reception among the games available are ‘table tennis, pool and crocket’. Must give crocket a try sometime. There’s also a notice in our room telling us that ‘ If sheets and towers are dirtied with tattoo ink, then you are liable to be changed’. Must be careful of that, although they must get quite a lot of the gay S & M crowd in to have to make a point of it eh?
We met the holiday rep at 4 pm for an ‘informal get together’. As is usual with these meetings, our rep Ross didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know or couldn’t have found out for ourselves in a matter of minutes. So another waste of our time. I don’t know why we go to these things, we always do and we always regret it. They’re all the same – bloody useless.
One of the pieces of paper Ross gave us is headed up ‘Events – Lloret de Mar’ and for Saturday we have a choice of either ‘Bar Crawl’ or ‘Party Night’.
This is Bar Crawl –
‘You’ll be mad to miss this night out in the famous Lloret de Mar! You will be taken with the help of your reps to the five liveliest bars in Lloret! You’d better make sure you’re prepared for a top night!’
Lots of exclamation marks there so it must be good eh? And for the privilege of walking around the town behind some spotty eighteen year old holiday rep it only costs £6.35! (That last exclamation mark was mine, sorry! Oops, so was that, sorry, sorry).
This is Party Night –
‘Join us in the Queen Vic, the best pub in Lloret de Mar for a night full of fun and games for all. A great way to start your holiday and make new friends.’
No exclamation marks here at all so Bar Crawl with three has got to be considered hasn’t it? It’s either that or sitting out by the hotel pool at 10 pm with a cold beer to watch the free hotel show. Mmmmm……what shall we do? The notice board in the hotel foyer has a poster advertising tonight’s show. It’s ‘Samba Night’. Oh yes, Samba. The poster shows six short men in big frilly flared shirts with big frilly flared sleeves, big frilly flared trousers, big frilly flared socks and big frilly flared shoes. Ten women in Carmen Miranda outfits with bunches of bananas stuck on their heads move and sway suggestively to the intoxicating Latin rhythms of a three piece combo while the six men shake their big frilly shoulders and barely concealed maracas in a frenzy of sexual abandonment. Ai-yi-yi-yi-yi-let’s-go………..
The reality was somewhat different as you’ve probably already guessed.
The show started at 10 pm and we arrived in good time to get a reasonably close table. The first thing that struck me was how on earth they were going to get six wild and crazy big frilly men and ten all dancing all singing bunches of bananas on a stage which seemed no bigger than my sun-bed. And then some pre-recorded music blasted out, slowly at the wrong speed at first but quickly reaching the right pitch just as the curtains bounced opened, and there running towards the front of the stage was the show - two girls in black shorts and black sports bras and three men in black shorts. They came belting downstage in a frenzy of disco dance moves, waving their arms, legs and heads around in a blur of disjointed dancing that didn’t fit the music at all.
I started to smile. Then giggle. The shoulders started to go and I couldn’t stop laughing. This is what it’s all about isn’t it? I thought at first it wouldn’t be worth watching but this is pure gold. The music stopped, the two girls left the stage and the three blokes tried to make us laugh. They thought the best way to do this was to have one bloke stage left, one stage right, one centre stage and then for the stage right man to shout “Ola!” in a loud deep voice while stage left man shouted “Ola!” in a high pitched poofy voice. For some inexplicable reason this went down fantastically well and when they dragged up two men from the audience and got them to shout “Ola! in high pitched poofy voices the audience fell about. Then, with no let up, they started to get the two men to copy various silly dance moves and body movements. By now the audience were in hysterics.
Now you may remember me mentioning a man centre stage. Well he didn’t appear to do very much at all while all this was going on, he just hopped around a bit while mugging at the audience. Perhaps he was the new boy just learning the ropes. Then the three men left the stage to thunderous applause and the two girls came back on, now in flowery brightly coloured bikinis. They also hopped around a bit, shaking their shoulders and smiling a lot and then they too, called for two men to come up on stage. This was all too predictable for words and like the three men before them they proceeded to get the two volunteers to do a shoulder shaking dance with a few grinds and bumps thrown in for good measure. Oh how we laughed.
Then it was the three men back on stage with the girls. The men had now changed into leopard skin loin-cloths and were holding a small stick in each hand. The sticks were slightly longer and thicker than pencils and as the naughty jungle rhythms insinuated themselves into our sub-conscious, the men jumped around hitting their sticks together which made a resounding and satisfying weedy clicking noise as they did so. While the men were working themselves into a frenzy of stick clicking the women hopped up and down. Then they all left the stage and one man came back. Oh no it’s going to be fire eating next.
Now, I thought the sticks were small but I’m not exaggerating when I say that the two fire eating wands he was holding were the size of a children’s sparkler. In each hand he was waving around a short metal rod with a flickering flame at the tip which looked no bigger than a candle flame. In fact if you can imagine someone swaying about holding two birthday candles close to their naked flesh but not actually touching, then you get some idea of the danger and excruciating pain he was putting himself through. He went down a bomb though. I nearly spilt my lager with laughter. What a Samba show eh? No men in big frilly outfits. No Carmen Mirandas. No Samba music and no three-piece combo. But then we didn’t expect there to be did we?
It all ended up with the five performers leading a small group of people in a Conga around the front of the stage and that was it. The Samba Show had finished with not a Samba in sight.
Can’t wait for Monday’s show, more of which later.
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