"All right,
dude," Cody said. "You made it all the way here from Mexico City on
your own. I'm sure you can handle yourself in Películas."
We fist bumped and I sat
back down as they descended the steps. My short dance with Rosa had sparked me,
not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. I was anxious, in a
good way; I felt something in the air that I could not yet define. I wanted to dance
and drink, but it was something more than that: I realized, as I sat there,
that when I had lived in Venezuela, I had been fortunate enough to build the
kind of relationships that allowed me to experience Venezuela not as an
American, but as a native. Mark had gradually morphed
into Marco. I realized that I had not truly gotten to know even one person
from Cusco in a relationship that was not based on commerce. All the
relationships I had built were with Europeans, Australians, Californians. I
wanted to experience Cusco, but not as a gringo. I wanted to be cusqueño,
before it was too late, even it were for one night, for one hour, before I left
this enchanted city in the mountains.
***********
(Note: all dialogue in this entry took
place in Spanish unless otherwise noted).
For the second time in a
minute, I rose from the table. I was armed with a half-full bottle of
Cusqueña, an ability to dance merengue y salsa, and not much more. I had
been in the same clothes, at that point on June 28, 2007, for over 16 hours. I had not showered since the day before. I
had not shaved since Iowa, 9 days and several lifetimes ago.
Moreover, I had no
plan, or rather, the plan I had was worse than no plan at all:
I would exude
confidence, dance with a woman, to then be drawn inevitably into her circle of
friends.
Walking into the dance
room, my chances dropped further. The
dance floor was barely active; it was still early according to Peruvian time. The party isn’t exactly raging at 10:30, even on a Thursday. Very few women want to put
themselves out there, dancing with a random dude still in his hiking shit,
particularly a gringo who’s attempt at confidence reeked more of utter
cluelessness.
I must have asked 2 or 3
women to dance. Two were polite; one actually laughed at me. “I’ll have another
beer, or two,” I said. “If I can’t ingratiate myself somewhere by then, it
wasn’t meant to be.”
I wandered over to the
end of the bar. I ordered another Cusqueña and turned around, leaning against
the bar and observing the room. “Just plant yourself and let them come to you,”
was another piece of advice I’d heard of the years, and it had produced amount
the same amount of success as the exuding confidence bit.
But still. I was in
Cusco, Peru. I was out at a real, live bar, with real, live cusqueños. I had just spent the day at Machu Picchu. This
was some pretty cool shit, even if I couldn’t find a dance partner. The volume rose by the minute. The dance
floor, little by very little, was crowding up; from my vantage point, I could
see the whole thing.
I could even see the
doors to the dance floor opening and closing, and then, no more than fifteen
minutes after they’d left, the two cusqueñas who had mysteriously descended
down the stairway came through the door. They still had their parkas on; not
enough people were dancing yet to create any warmth.
We made eye contact; I
smiled and nodded, but did not move. Maybe my second strategy was working. The women slowly moved through the room,
assessing the crowd, moving slowly but steadily towards where I was standing.
Finally, they reached me.
“We thought you guys had
left,” said the shorter one, in very broken English.
“We thought the same about
you,” I responded in Spanish.
She seemed a bit
surprised but responded in Spanish. “We tried to tell you we were coming
back—we were just making a phone call.” (Oh, so that’s what those hand signals
had been!). “So. Anyway. How are you?”
“Awesome,” I said. “One
of the greatest days of my life.”
“And your friends?” she
asked.
“They went back to the
hotel,” I said. “They have an early flight tomorrow.”
Finally, the taller
woman spoke up: “Where are you guys from?”
I smiled. “Where do you
think we’re from?”
They looked at each
other. “Argentina?”
I smiled again. “Not
even close. North, north, north.”
“Colombia?”
“No. The United States.”
“Wow! The United States!
But your Spanish is so…good. I mean, you
don’t even have an accent. I mean, I can tell you’re not Peruvian, but United
States....Wow. That is awesome. You speak very good Spanish.”
I winked at the short
one. “So do you.”
She gave me a quizzical
look. “But…of course I do…I mean, I live here…”
I couldn’t hold my laughter any longer, and she finally got my joke.
“Listen,” the taller one
said, “what do you think of Cusco?”
Always the first
question. “Cusco is fucking amazing,” I
told them. “I’ve never been in a place like this. I hope to get back sometime.”
The short one motioned
to my bottle of beer. “And the Cusqueña? You like it?”
“Love it.”
“So now,” the short one
said, “now you have three cusqueñas.”
Now it was my turn to be
quizzical. I had only one bottle in my hand. Were they buying me beer?
The short one laughed
and said, “Bobo. One,” she said,
pointing again at the bottle, “two”, she said, pointing at her friend, “and
three,” she said, pointing at herself.
“Three cusqueñas. Can you handle three cusqueñas?”
As I got the joke—and
felt a huge wave of flattery spread through me--I laughed and I laughed and I
laughed. She had gotten me good.
“Well, I’ll sure as hell
give it a shot,” I said. “Can I get you ladies a drink, and we can sit down and
properly introduce ourselves?”
“Cusqueñas,” they
responded almost simultaneously.
The bartender gave us
the beer—I bought another because I was getting low—and we walked out the
landing where I had just been sitting 30 minutes ago, where I sat down to get
to know my two new cusqueñas.
********
Almost six hours later, just after 4:00 A.M. on June 29, 2007, I fell into my bed back at Hotel Suecia 2. My plan had worked shockingly well. The two cusqueñas had turned out to be sisters--Ana y Yésica--and had been, indeed, waiting on their cousin Javier, who, for his part, was hanging out with, it seemed like, about 20 different people over the course of five hours.
Cusqueños came and went in and out of our group. After Películas, we went to two other bars, places I didn't know existed even though I had walked by them dozens of times in the daylight. The second place was not very big, but I bet two hundred people were packed in there. The third place was cavernous--three or four big rooms separated by concrete walls. The music got louder the later it got; I think I heard R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" five times. I must have danced with ten different cusqueñas. I didn't pay for a drink the rest of the night; everyone was more than happy to buy for the gringo who somehow spoke Spanish and knew how to dance.
Once I passed midnight, I was ready to go home; however, my new friends weren't hearing of it, and kept plying me with Cusqueña and rum and cokes. It is amazing how long one can subsist on that diet. Finally, at 4:00, after the last bar closed, the entire group that was still out--Yésica, Ana, Javier, and a couple other friends--walked me back to Suecia, to make sure I made it in okay.
Somehow, I found the strength to kick my shoes off. I dropped a sleeping pill in my mouth and closed my eyes. In the short time before I fell asleep, I reviewed the past 22 hours: Roy, Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu, Jamie, Peliculas, Rosa, Yésica, Ana, Javier, "Losing My Religion".
"Someday," I thought, "someday I've got to write this down. It'll make one hell of a story."
Then again, I thought as I dropped off, I'm not sure it's all believable. I'm not sure I believe it all myself.
