Peruvians LOVE TO PARTY! Which is great for us as volunteers because then so do we. Why? Because when a party is going on in your town or a nearby town you might as well schedule that time as cultural exchange time because that is where your towns people will be. haha. As of yet the disruptive parties have been small (anniversaries of neighboring schools or the small communities) BUT I now know what it means to party on the Peruvian Big Scale! haha and oh man is it fun. Now I can for sure understand why life stops and the crowds flock.
Day One: So I went into Chota as usual on Sunday (the party had already weathered 4 days of partying) to the Pampa. The Pampa had beer tents every where just like an Oktoberfest including craft venders haha. A group of us volunteers passed a large part of the day there enjoying the food and entertainment. Entertainment included some typical Huyano dancing and singing, the Peruvian horses, among various speeches (each speech got longer and longer as the day went by). I'm not a fan of Huyano so I was sad that I left my cotton balls at home to stop the nails on a chalkboard sounds. ha ha.
So we spent the day frolicking and then went back into main Chota to recoup for the nighttime activities. When we left for the night we went to the fountain in the Plaza to listen to the bands and people watch. Also, in a funny turn of events wound up having like a heart to heart with 2 of the older volunteers about how to make the new group feel more included because we didn't do such a good job with the older group. Oops! After this great I don't know 1 or 2 hour chat we went DANCING!!!!! It was so much fun. The Amayas Hermanos were playing that night. A volunteer, Courtney, loves them so of course we got right up there by the stage to dance the night away. Dancing in and of itself is super fun, but dancing with super drunk Peruvian men who don't understand that you don't want to be touched is a whole different bag of beans. Although I went with the best two volunteers Courtney and Barbara because they know how to tell those men to leave a girl alone! ha ha. Anyways we drank and danced until 4 AM I haven't been out til 4 AM since I don't know how long....Prom? haha. But it was a great night! After the group stopped playing we went got some street food to restore us and head home.
Day Two: So as you would expect we slept for a good portion of this day. When we finally did get up, we cooked breakfast which was simple: scrambled eggs and toast but oh man did it hit the spot. The only time we left our room was to go buy tickets for that afternoons Bull Fight! I figured I didn't go to one the last time in Peru because I thought I wouldn't like what they do to the bulls, etc. But this time around it is a big event!! We laid around until 3 PM bull time.
So Barbara explained to me what was happening every step of the way and it made bull fighting take on an artful feel in place of animal killing.
The 3 main toreadors were from Mexico and Spain. The guy from Mexico was the best of the 3. He was so entertaining. His dancing with the bull was by far the most captivating BUT the young buck from Spain, Jairo was the best to look at.
I mean look at him.....
So we screamed and yelled the bulls on and the toreadors as well. One bull was very fortunate and received a pardon because the people thought he was to small for the fight. It was the craziest thing because weight wise he wasn't the smallest bull of the day either haha. Also, the young Jairo got the best bull of the day...the last at 480 kilos=1056 lbs. Huge right!!!! and man oh man that bull didn't take anything laying down. He charged and charged with the same level of energy until the end. We all thought that Jairo would get 2 ears (ears are the token of a successful bull fight. Unfortunately when he went in for the kill he didn't get the sword thing in in the right place and then it got kinda sad because he had to kill the bull in the head which takes awhile.
So we ended on a sad note BUT I must be a blood thirsty person because I loved it.
However, it was campo day...meaning the quality of bulls and fighters went way way down.
As you can see from the photo above and below you can see that they are more afraid of the bulls as well.
This dude in red is from Peru...he wasn't very good but he got 3 ears in total. This is also justification of their lower quality because on day one only the Mexican received an ear for each of his torros and he was leaps and bounds better! Some of the girls didn't like the bull fighting as much as I did so who knows who will go with me next year but
while in Peru do as the Peruvians do and celebrate with a party.
