sunday funday

or: the peruvian pour and the art of drinking.

or: yo no se manana.

or: i fell in love with a country named peru.

all possible names for this post. but i´m sticking with sunday funday because those have been, hands down, my most favorite days ever in peru.

basically, sundays are when all the peruvians let loose. saturday nights are for going out, yes, but sundays are for hanging out all day long. the day for rest, the day for families, the day for friends. most of the time, celebrated by drinking cervezas outside. and this brings in the peruvian pour and the art of drinking, because in this country, it truly is an art and to confess, takes a little bit of time to pick up. but in a nutshell...

no matter how many people, be it 2 or 12, there is always only one beer and one glass at all times. i am handed the beer, i pour myself a small shot-sized glass, i pass the bottle to the next. after tossing back the drink in a couple gulps, proper etiquette is to fling (trust a now-seasoned expert, it´s all in the wrist flick) the backwash of the beer out (on the pavement, in the sand, wherever said sunday funday is occuring) and pass the glass. and so on, ´round the circle it goes. once the bottle runs out, another magically appears. and on sunday funday (or any other day, for that matter), they don´t stop coming. that is the only way to drink as the peruvians do, and it took us a while to get in the loop. in the beginning, we would be invited to a group, only to be given our own glass. ouch, such a peruvian faux paux (but now that i think about it, probably a bit more hygenic, ha). talk about being out of the circle. jeanette and i began to get offended when we would order a drink and the bartender would bring us two glasses. excuse me sir, we´ve been in peru two months now, we know how things go down. one vasito will suffice, thank you very much.

so where have i been since? after huanchinca, we headed to the white city of arequipa. talk about style, this town was class class class. a beautiful plaza de armas, colonial buildings that nearly sparkled in the sun, and the most laid-back market i´ve ever visited, where we would stand and eat the most delicious salteña empanadas with the business men and teenages, fighing over the bowl of chili sauce. the plan was to base here, then head to colca canyon for a couple days trekking into one of the worlds deepest canyon. but when we showed up at the bus terminal, bright and early with all of our packs at 9am, found that the next bus didn´t leave until 3. hemmm what to do, what to do? we remembered an artisan friend told us he was from mollendo, discovered a bus headed there in the next ten minutes, bid a very cold, very deep canyon chau, and headed to the coast.

we were the ony gringas, and that´s the way we liked it. during the weekend, the beach would be flooded with latin tourists--and seriously, NOTHING is more entertaining than latins on holidays-- but on the weekdays quiet and laid-back. people seemed a bit shocked that we hung around as long as we did--even peruvians only stay the weekend, and we kicked it for almost two weeks. by the end, we knew practically everyone in mollendo, or at least, everyone knew us. the guys who worked the beach would get us our umbrella every day, we would share cervezas with the lifeguards (yes, we made friends with latin baywatch) and our new amigo rafael, the old ice-cream man with one tooth would play ¨here comes the bride¨ on his harmonica whenever he say me. the town was so small that when word got around that i looooved the song ÿo no se manaña¨(see below), the guy at our usual tienda presented me with a CD. no, i´d never really talked to him before in my life. i loved it. something about small towns are just so addicting.

after mollendo, a night bus to cuzco, and that is another post for another time.

i´m leaving peru tonight for bolivia, and trying to peg the reasons i love this country so much is like trying to describe why i love indiana jones to those weird people who haven´t watched it 500 times. maybe it´s because i love the song yo no se manana and so does the rest of peru. maybe it´s because all the peruvians give each other nicknames (they called me gatita, little cat, because of my green eyes). maybe it´s because i love the aji sauce, the spicer the better, and every hole-in-the-wall restaurant has their own special blend. maybe it´s because they love love love inca cola here instead of coca cola, despite it´s chemical-yellow color. maybe it´s because this whole country--from broken down buses to cargo boats to sandduning to exploring ancient ruins--has been an adventure. maybe it´s because i finally saw machu picchu. maybe it´s because each city, each village, each town, is so unique--from chaotic iquitios to chilled out huanchaco--yet so distinctly peruvian at the same time. maybe it´s because this is the first country where i´ve really gotten to know locals. maybe it´s because i just fell in love--with the people, the places, the smells, the music, the food, the slang, the driving, the attitude, the confidence, the shyness, the openess, the history, the mystery, the very essence of this country.