Day 146 Party Poopers

Teri doesn't like my imposed format of starting each of my days at midnight. Most days it doesn't matter but on consecutive days like Christmas Eve/Christmas and New Year's Eve/New Year's Day it is a little odd. So here's--

Thursday 1 Jan 2009

We have yellow underwear on because that is what people do in Piura for New Years Eve because yellow is a “lucky” color—hence, all the celebratory material Club Grau gave us for our 30 soles entry-ticket is yellow—stupid 2-0-0-9 glasses, whistles, noise makers, and streamers.

Quema de Castilla (Burning the Castle) goes off at midnight. We are a little concerned about the fireworks display because it is mounted on the roof of the covered walkway between the swimming pools, it is probably 25-feet high, and it looks like cobbled-together scaffolding. Our table is about 15-feet from the edge of the roof so when we see a guy place a ladder so he can climb onto the roof we, and all the people near us, move back to the edge of the swimming pool behind us—it’s not far enough away if the Castilla falls our way, but I figure we can jump in the pool if necessary. The grande finale exceeds our expectations; a pinwheel at the peak of the structure lights up, shoots out sparks 20-feet as it increases rotational velocity, takes off vertically like a rocket, rises to a few hundred feet above us, and explodes in a multi-color blast of epic proportions.

Around 12:30 a smiling woman from an adjacent table invites us to join them (we had been sitting alone at our table for eight the whole time); Fan is her name and she immediately asks me to dance—her husband doesn’t seem to dance much, he mostly sits there morosely pouring prodigious amounts of alcohol down his throat. The others at the table are very friendly, but only Fan seems smashed; they are three couples, one couple about 30 years old (with a new baby at home we’re told), and the other two couples are the parents of the young couple. The parents of the bride have two other daughters who both live in the US, one in Florida, one in North Carolina. The mother’s name is Teresa—I don’t hear the names of the others at the table. The father of the bride is a retired civil engineer and has a bottle of Black Label which has about two-inches left in it. Teri and I dance several times and I dance with Fan one more time while she loudly sings of love along with the rest of the dancers. When we leave at 3:00 only 10% of the crowd has gone before us—the party is just beginning, it seems. We taxi home through a deserted centro and we hear music pouring from several of the houses near us on Los Fresnos. I awaken at 7:00 and I hear loud music still coming from somewhere in the neighborhood.

We chat with Yobani over almuerzo about what to do and what not to do while we’re gone for the next two weeks—allow nobody in the gate, except Kevin, Jorge Gs brother, who may come by to stay a night or two (Jorge had informed us of this during a Skype call early last evening before the fiesta.)

We catch the 2:40 flight to Lima and taxi to Villa Roma, our hotel in Santa Beatriz near the Circuito Mágico de Aqua (we can see a fountain when we lean out our window). The hotel has a nice online site with a beautiful lobby, but all our rooms smell of mold and both kid’s rooms have a mirror on the ceiling over the bed. Teri says, “Good God, I bet they rent rooms by the hour here!” I respond, “I think they used to before urban renewal.”

Teri buys two bottles of water and leaves a welcome-to-Peru note along with the water in each of their rooms. They left Portland at 6:00 AM local time and, after a stop in Houston, will arrive in Lima tonight at 11:31 where we arranged a taxi driver to meet them with a sign reading, “Coppedge.” We can hardly wait to see them, but they won’t arrive at Villa Roma until 1:30 or 2:00—we’re party poopers for the 2^nd time today as we hit the sack at 9:30 after cena at a nearby chifa.