Hillary Clinton parties in Colombia nightclub

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enjoys a relax momment at Cafe Havana in Cartagena, Colombia on April 15, 2012. Clinton is in Cartagena to attend the VI Summit of the Americas which closes on Sunday. AFP PHOTO

CARTAGENA – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, known for her hard work and gruelling schedule, took a rare moment off at the weekend and let her hair down to enjoy a dance and a beer with some friends.

Just hours after attending Saturday’s official dinner for the heads of state and government attending a 34-nation Latin American summit in the Colombian tourist resort of Cartagena, Clinton was seen partying in a nearby nightclub.

Still attired in the smart black evening pant suit set off by an impressive sparkly necklace that she wore to the dinner, Clinton was seen enjoying herself at a late-night gathering of her staff in the Cafe Havana.

A State Department official told AFP the US top diplomat had heard that staffers were celebrating the birthday of Roberta Jackson, assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs.

“When she heard some of staff had gone dancing to celebrate A/S Jacobson’s birthday, and party was still going on when summit dinner ended, she wanted to stop by. So yes, she joined party in progress,” the official said, asking to remain anonymous.

Casting off her usually stuffy world of diplomatic niceties and thorny global issues, Clinton was seen smiling and dancing, surrounded by a crowd of women, as well as sitting at a table sharing a joke and drinking a beer.

Pictures of Clinton’s happy moment went viral, the second time in a week that her fun side has become an instant hit on the Internet.

On Tuesday, the creators of “Texts from Hillary,” a spoof blog featuring photos of a sunglasses-sporting Clinton reading her Blackberry inside a C-17 military cargo plane were invited to the State Department to meet her.

She then posted her own texts onto the blog on the popular Tumblr platform.

First posted 7:20a.m.