Feathers and glitter

Buenos Aires, 2am, and it's raining hard. I'm with my old school friend Lilly and her brother Will. We're in a hostel renowned for its party atmosphere and recommended by backpackers all over the place. The nightlife doesn't start here till ridiculously late so we've only just had dinner and now are sitting in a corner of the hostel bar drinking sugary cocktails and being antisocial. The hostel have put on a "crazy hat" theme, an effort with, no doubt, good intentions, but frankly it stinks of the organised fun of university freshers weeks, and since I'm not travelling on my own any more I no longer need to continually make the effort to be social. It's a relief to fall back on the laziness of having an old friend for company. We we can just be, without the trying.

Everyone is leaving, heading out to various clubs, but the main one is a transvestite club, and much against my will I am persuaded by Lilly that this is the place to go. I am not amused. Neither is Lil's brother, but we succumb, for novelty value and all that.

Firstly we're dumped by the cab driver at the wrong club. This seems to be a running theme in this city - cabbies taking us around the world and back again as we're clearly stupid clueless English tourists who have no idea where we're going, and haven't the language skills to effectively debate our route. A second cab ride and another half hour later, we arrive at the right place. I know this because the first thing I see as I step out the cab is a huge, grossly fat man dressed in a glittery skintight Lycra leotard (of sorts), smothered in bright pink make-up and with large purple feathers somehow sprouting from his head. He smiles at us in the queue. My eyes widen.

Inside, the place is buzzing with people, several of whom we recognise from the hostel, and there are surprisingly few transvestites running around. Most people seem to have also come for the novelty value, which makes me feel much better. The curtain on stage is hauled up and a show begins, full of breasts and fake breasts and fishnets and thigh-high boots and gaudy colours and feathers and leathers and hats and lipstick, and far, far too much skin oozing out of outfits several sizes too small. The music is awful, it's like Moulan Rouge gone Eurodisco gone Regaton. But hey, it's all part of the show. I suppose.

Will has had enough and makes a swift exit, leaving Lilly and I gaping at the stage trying to pretend its a perfectly normal evening. I quickly decide to scrap this way of thinking, as clearly this is not just any normal place, there's plenty more clubs in this city which I know will be to my liking, so for now I decide to drop the snob act and enjoy myself. Obviously I still complain at regular intervals to anyone who'll listen about how bad the music is, which quickly gets boring for everyone except me, but it's pretty much vital to my existence to remind myself that I have good taste in music. This probably makes me appear to others as someone who believes that for this reason I am better than they. There may be some truth in that, but one shouldn't admit these things out loud.

It's getting late. The place is emptying out, and the curtain opens again, for one last show. This time, there's no scary looking women pretending to act out disgusting sex acts on men dressed as women. This time its a gorgeous, tall semi-naked page 3 style blond girl doing what by all accounts appears to be a strip club act. Lilly and I are right in front of the stage. We exchange concerned glances. We turn around to the crowd and are met with a sea of male faces, eyes glued to the stage. It has become apparent that, unsurprisingly, we are some of the only girls left. We can't watch for very long and convincingly pretend we are deeply insulted by such a cheap grotesque display, while finding the whole thing highly amusing.

The act finishes, and I look up to see my good friend surrounded, trapped in a circle of 6 or 7 Argentinian men. She makes a face of disgust. It is time to leave. A spotlight bursts onto the centre of the stage, the transvestite I had seen outside grabs the closed velvet curtains, and in a dramatic gesture flings them open, arms outstretched, holds a pose for a second or two, and then hurls them shut, bowing as he does so. The light goes out. It's over.