Aimlesswanderer's travel blogs:
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frozen sacrifice and a music festival
Entry 21 of 25 | show all | print this entry |
waking up to a new city in the daylight is always one of my favourite things, as u dont really know what the place is like when u arrive late at night, other than intimidating...arequipa turned out to be quite a beautiful city, much like sucre in bolivia...one of the museum highlights of the city is the preserved frozen body of a young incan girl, nicknamed juanita...she was found after a volcano dislodged her from her resting place at the top of the highest mountain in the area...she was a sacrificial offering to the gods(mountains), and is remarkably well preserved...i took the obligatory tour of the museum, and ended up meeting an american girl that i would hang out with for the rest of the day, basically killing time...this may seem like extra unnecessary information (and some of u may argue that that is the case with most of my stories), but i mention it because weeks later in my trip, i would reencounter her, and she would join our trekking group into the mountains of huaraz...anyways, i digress.....
after being asked a few times in the day if i was here for the futbol(soccer) matches, i did some inquiring and realized that the copa d'america was going on in peru...this is a highlight for the south american futbol fan, as it is their version of the euro-cup held in europe...shortly, thereafter i ran into a couple english blokes who were talking about the upcomming match the next day, so i invited myself along, figuring that even tho i dont really give a shit about sports, this would be a cool event to check out while i was here....i mean what could be more authentically latino then attending a futbol match in latin america??? of course you would have to overlook the fact that probably 95 percent of the population would never be able to afford such luxury, but what the hell...so i joined my new found friends for a trip to the local shopping mall (which could have been any other shopping mall in the world), and we purchased tickets for the game (at least i thought it was only one game) the following day...
my english friends had prior commitments for the evening so i left them to wander the streets by myself, when i encountered a couple of local guys who were touts for a tour agency, trying to hawk tours...not interested in another tour, i declined, but they also mentioned that they were forming a group of gringos for that evening to take to the outdoor music festival...it was a few local bands, and the headliners were a reggae/rock/funk group from chile called gondwana...i had seen poster advertising this concert earlier, and the wanna-be jamaican guys at the mall trying to sell me dope outside the mall also were talking quite excitedly about the show, so i was quite intrigued at the possibility of attending with a group of other travellers...i was told that they were meeeting up later that evening for the trip to the jardin de cervezas (beer gardens)...as i glanced at the list of mainly girls names they were carrying, i figured that it would be a good evening...
upon meeting up with my new amigos later on in the evening, it became apparent that no- one else was showing...they decided to track down the girls that they were interested in (and thought that it was a reciprocal attraction) at their hostel...when we got to the hostel i stayed at the bottom of the stairs and watched (embarrassed for the poor guys as they couldnt take the hint) as the girls made excuses for not coming along for the evening...finally we were able to depart for the concert, and we stopped off at the local wine store for some preshow beverage (of which i paid the majority of course!)...upon arriving at the venue, it was discovered that no-one had a corkscrew with them, so the next order of bizness was to get the bottle open...the "whacking the bottom of the bottle" trick didnt work, so we ventured into a convenience store to borrow one from them...after consuming rapid shots of wine outside the beer garden, we headed for the gate...
here we ran into some people my local friends knew, and we stopped to chat for awhile...it was at this time that a group of fairly young girls were standing nearby, and my amigos decided to ask them if any of them knew english so that they could talk to me...basically they were trying to set me up...one of them did, so now i had a group of girls to entertain...sweet...next thing you know, her two friends left to go find a phone to use and it was just two of us...one of my friends wanted to head in, but i told him i was going to wait for her friends to return so she didnt have to wait by herself (im such a gentleman hey?)...he seemed a little annoyed at this, as he believed his friend to have been inside already, waiting for us...the chica told me repeatedly that she didnt trust my friends, and that i should be careful...great, i thought, just when i had finally met some locals that i thought i could trust(half-assed anyway), here she comes and puts me on edge agian...i think she may have just been put off by their lack of subtlety when attempting to "charm" members of the opposite sex...anyways, her friends eventually returned, and i headed into the gates with my amigo...
now it was discovered that his friend had his money, and could he "borrow" $5 to get in???like usual, the walking piggy bank gave in, and we were in the grounds, at which time, we looked around for the other guy...wouldnt u know it, he comes running from the outside as he hadnt yet entered...in case some of u havent read between the lines here, i believe the whole thing was a setup as they only had enuff $$ for one of them to get in, so they planned the whole scenario of getting split up...whatever, minimal financial damage aside, they made good company...
the crowd at the music festival was large, drunk, and rowdy...it was sponsored by the local beer company, so everyone was pretty liquored...the band we caught first was a local favourite, and every song seemed to have a reference to the city and its people in it, at which time the entire crowd would go off...quite entertaining to be one of about maybe 10 gringoes in the entire place...without any shadow of a doubt, i was also the tallest--easily towering over everyone...the next band, which was supposed to be the headliners, but wasnt, was some washed up band that didnt know their 15 minutes was up and should have retired years ago...we used that time to rest on a hill for awhile until the final show began...finally, at about 1 am (way later than i wanted to be out there) Gondwana took the stage, and the crowd went nuts again...they put on a great show complete with crazy dancing guy, and it was well worth the wait...
by the end of the night, i couldnt wait to get outta there and back to the hostel...especially since i was worried about the prospect of having to use one of the less than clean port-a-potties...i was quite sure that it would be a neccessity, as i had eaten what i believe to have been almost raw "some kind of animal", and food poisoning was only a matter of time...as luck would have it, i never did get sick, so it was all good...
instead of taking the taxi back, it was decided that it would be much cheaper to take the collectivo(minivan-bus)...the first one was packed, so i wasnt able to squeeze in, and i ended up getting seperated from the guys i was with and their friends...luckily a few minutes later, i saw one of them and we boarded another just-as-packed collectivo...i believe the word collectivo is used to signify the fact that they will collect as many people as absolutely humanly possibly in one van...every time i boarded one of these things, i felt like i was taking part in some sort of college fraternity prank, much like the telephone booth stuffing...my buddy informs me that he is getting off half way to the downtown area where i am headed, but not to worry as he had explained to the money colllector where i wanted to get dropped off...so, now it is like 4 am, and i am hoping that some guy i cant see, is going to let me know when to get off this jam packed van...i have no idea where i am, other than squeezed between a whole shitload of locals cruising down some city streets...eventually the guy told me it was my stop, and that all i had to do to get to the downtown area was walk five or six blocks "that way" as he pointed down a dark street...awesome, another wander thru a dark street in the middle of the night, sounds like fun....it turned out to be an area that i recognized so it was all good in the end, and i was on my way to the hostel...
before i got there, however, i had to pass thru the central square, and i saw a whole bunch of people gathered around a person laying down, seemingly injured or sick, or something...meanwhile i was on the sidewalk, passsing a police van with two offficers in the front seat, covered up by their blankets, oblivious to the whole scene...good work guys!!!a minute or two later, an ambulance came screaming up, so im assuming the poor fella eventually got the care he needed, no thanks to the policia...
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| 21. | frozen sacrifice and a music festival - Arequipa, Peru Aug 24, 2004 |
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