As some of you know, my husband Sam came down from Ecuador where he was studying and interning to do a bit of traveling in the great nation of Peru. I’m not going to tell you all of it, but I would like to tell you a story or two about part of it.
At one point in the trip, Sam and I found ourselves stopped for a night in a little town called Celendin between the cities of Cajamarca and Chachapoyas since we couldn’t catch a bus until the next morning. Thankfully, a nice Peruvian guy informed us that it was the fiesta patronal (the celebration of the patron saint) of one of the neighboring villages… of course we wanted to go! Especially me, since I knew there would be plenty of alcohol, delicious food, music and nonsense for everyone involved to have a grand time. And, if I understood correctly, we would be just in time to see the bullfight (Is that even the right word) that usually happens at these things. Indeed, we were! I have never been very resolute in my desire to see one of these things, but here was my chance. We eventually were let in and got to stand right up close to all of the action. It was great: 5 to 7 toreros (bullfighters) waving pink and red sheets at this one goofy bull and eventually one torero who had the honor of first stabbing it multiple times with several spears and second of sticking it the head with a sword. This one torero almost got split in two by the bull’s horns but fortunately, the only thing that happened was he got the part of his outfit covering his ass torn so that everyone could see one of his very attractive butt cheeks, which was bleeding from the encounter. Of course the humans won (like usual) and Sam and I had the pleasure of seeing the bull die slowly and pathetically approximately 3 meters away from us. After it had died and the torero cut his one ear off to display in triumph to the cheering crowd, everyone held up two fingers demanding of the valiant fighter that he cut off the other. Yay! It was spectacular, spectacular, no words in the vernacular… Also, I asked this little girl of about 8 or 9 years next to me what she thought of the whole ordeal and she said, “bonito” which meant she thought it was a nice show to watch. In fact, she had already seen three others before. The she asked me where I was from and if everyone in the US speaks English.
BUT! Most importantly, I would like to tell you about the half time show that took place in between the two bullfights we saw. It was a presentation by none other than three traveling artisan hippies that we saw outside of the gates. For a little bit of context, this bullfight took place in a tiny rural town in the mountains of Peru for an audience of maybe 200 to 400 people. The hippies came dressed in their un-matching hippie clothes, painted faces and dreaded hair all ready to woo the crowd with their flag-spinning and fire throwing skills. While one boy and one girl spun their fire sticks and strings in death-defying feats, the other girl pranced around the stadium spinning her flags in gravity-defying fashion. Wow. I couldn’t believe that I had the privilege of seeing the same show I saw at one of the intersections in Cajamarca at this stadium in the Middle-Of-Nowhere, Peru. It was a valiant effort, but I think I appreciated the ridiculous bullfighters more than the shitty hippies that seem to have participated in every level of every socio-economic scale in all of South America. From the upper-middle class families they come from to the big cities they wander around homeless in, to the rural towns to the beach sides the temporarily inhabit, to the crosswalks they sell their jewelry on, to the favelas they hang out in on occasion. Livin the life. Oh yeah. Wanna be an international hippie traveler, oh yeah. Dooo dooo dooo, f-you, man that gets me down, oh yeah. I do what I want, oh yeah!
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