Futbol

Ah, time to get the fingers a tapping again. This time, our neighborhood blog takes us to Peru. This mountainous country is situated below the equator, neighboring Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile. And speaking of the last two, a futbol match pitting them against each other will be attended by myself and my mates, broadcast electrically through the loudspeakers in delicious Español.

When I call a customer service phone center (they used be located in Georgia, but now they´re in Pakistan), I always have to spell my name out, like it´s being romanized for the first time. O-R-T-E-G-A, like the taco shell. That´s what I usually say, fishing for a giggle but usually landing an empty silence. But here, they say, nombre por favor, and I say, Edmundo Ortega, and then without pause, they write it down. They don´t ask if I meant to say Eduardo, or verify the number of O´s, or huff at the inherent pain involved with a ´difficult´name. This is something that I´ve been enjoying. At the bus station, our lady wanted the passenger names. First. Edmundo Ortega. Boom, she wrote it down and I smiled. Next. Suzy Bettinger. No movement. Then she gave it a go. S-O-S-E... but we interrupted at the third letter with corrections. Finally she directed our attention to a pencil and asked us to write it down.

Lima was fantastic. We got a lot of reports that it was a shithole and that we should spend as little time as possible there. Dang, I couldn´t disagree more. We arrived in foggy, San Francisco style weather and felt immediately comfortable. A winding late night drive from the airport doubled as a tour of the eerie, empty streets. The architecture is a mix of colonial style Spanish flats, and sixties modern. Not combined, but next to each other in some cases. It feels like a middle aged man who used to be swingin but recently inherited his grandmother´s decorative plate collection. The modern stuff is all worn down and vaguely Planet of the Apes, while the old stuff seems well taken care of. The center of the city is alive with well dressed business people and various hawkers of tourist devices. We bought candy from an old lady and walked away confused as to whether she was telling us to watch out for bandits or describing the inticracies of the local banking system. Either way she was friendly and our little marshmallow-carmal-pecan treats were yummy.

We ate a dinner time snack at a local second-floor restaurant. We ordered simple things from the menu, but felt a bit thick after subsequent customers received their delicious smelling green soups and piled up meat things. We vowed that in the future we would not be dumb. I´m positive we´ll meet this goal.

Speaking of goals... We took a bus to Araquipa (13 hours on the timetable, 16 hours in reality - not bad I think). Too bad the ride was in the middle of the night. In the morning I caught glimpses of some amazing adobe villages that were literally melting. There were also some very large sand dunes and about two hours of stunning views of what appeared to be the surface of Mars.

For us, Araquipa is just a cute town on the way to another cute town. Then we chose a taxi driver (or did he choose us) who informed us that a Copa Americas match was happening today in this very town. Brazil vs Chile would be playing in the evening while the afternoon offered Costa Rica vs Paraguay. After seeing some viligant Chilean flag waving in the plaza, we decided to buy tickets. Manuel, our super-friendly (as in: very friendly, not Hall-of-Justice-y) took us to the end of a line that wrapped around the ticket office. He told us to chill for a momento, and came back with an old woman and a cute little girl who apparently had been waiting in line since 4am and were now prepared to scalp. Which they did, to three very happy touristos.

If the occasionally heard chants and groups of similarly-clad fans marching through the plaza are any indication, we are in for a wild four hours of drinking and cheering. Hopefully Anne, Suzy and I can find matching jerseys and some non-toxic face paint in time. Tienes el painto del futbol non-toxico?