October 20, 2007
From SATA-Peru-2007
Today we slept in and woke up to a bright and beautiful Saturday morning. Surprisingly we had no concrete weekend plans, which allowed us to lounge in the courtyard in our pajamas until Darwin rallied the troops and made us get dressed to go to his house to “hang out.” Hans, Erich, Leia, Hayley, and I followed Darwin down the street like baby geese following their mama and picked up ice and lemons, which we later found out were for afternoon drinks at Darwin’s casa. We took about a fifteen-minute bus ride to Darwin’s house during which Hans was forced to bend his neck in an uncomfortable angle in order to fit in the bus. He has become the token gringo giant of the group. After being dropped off at the street closest to Darwin’s house we cut through streets, yards, and construction until we finally reached his door. On the way we ran into Darwin’s grandmother who greeted us with an “Allianchu” and nothing more.
No one was home in Darwin’s house so he blasted Peruvian classic rock and made mixed drinks in his room. Afterwards, Darwin told us that he needed to cut the crest off of his star fighting cock. After grabbing the cock from it’s crate Darwin instructed Hans on how to properly hold the rooster and then told Erich to stick his thumb in the cock’s mouth. We all stared at Darwin as he proceeded to show Erich how to position his thumb in the cock’s mouth while holding its feet so it wouldn’t squirm. Then, Darwin, with a blunt paper scissor in hand, began cutting the crest off the cock. For all of you who are unfamiliar with the anatomy of a cock, the crest is that weird red gobble thingy on top of the cock’s head. Darwin later explained, after wiping the blood off his arms, that he cuts the crest off his cocks so that while in the fighting ring, the opposing cock is unable to take hold of the crest and take the cock down. Then Darwin cut the crest into little pieces and fed it to the cock from which it was just removed. Gross.
We returned back to the hostel and the bunch of us went out for Falafel, which considering the circumstances, being made in South America, was quite tasty. A siesta and some reading later and it was time for Saturday night in Cusco! Of course we planned to go out hard for or last Saturday night in Cusco before leaving on our adventure to Manu, but like always, we were so tired and ended up returning to the Hostel at 12:30 am for a low key early sleep.
