Wednesday, 5/22/13
Our grand finale of
Cusco. By far, the greatest day. Probably the greatest day anyone can possibly
have.
We managed to summit
to the Sacsaywaman ruins by 5:30 to enter the park free of charge. Otherwise we
had to pay $50. No way. Besides, doing things when broke are always way more
fun. We had the entire place to ourselves for 1 ½ and could be as obnoxious as
we wanted. Check out the photographs. Who said slides are for little guys?
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| The ruins of Sacsaywaman. Looks cooler closer up. |
We bought our soccer
tix, ate, and shopped a bit more. Then headed to the game.
Let’s put it this
way: Soccer games in South America are way more interesting than we expected—and
we already had sky-high expectations.
The first half was
thrilling. The Peruvian team hit the goal post twice right off the bat. I
thought we were going to win. Nope, the other team kicked into gear and was
obviously far superior. They had this one forward who dazzled with his moves
and 2 goals.
Our hearts were
pumping going into half time. How little did we know that that would continue
through the “rest” period.
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| Some guy gave us free flags. Woohoo!! |
Chad and I had
befriended the people to our left and right. To our right, a middle-aged man
and a young fella. They were pleasant enough. To our left? Three drunkies!
Crazy is an understatement. The guy to my immediate left was standing up when
no one else was and cheering as if we scored a goal when the ball was being
retrieved from out of bounds by the ball boy—not exactly a thrilling moment.
Well, during half time, they made things interesting.
One guy with a hefty
stache got up at half time and yelled at the stands for not clapping during
half time. One guy made a sly remark (apparently) and the stache-man took his
shirt off and charged the guy looking for a fight. The other guy was a hero. He
stood up, looked the dude in the face, and called the police. By this time,
every eye in the stadium was turned the way. Then, Mr. Stand-Up-All-the-Time
joined his buddy in the skirmish.
To remember this
moment of our “buddies” creating a scene, Chad took out the iPhone to video
record the “festivities’. Well, I see this hand brush across my face as he
reached and grabbed Chad’s phone. I “shoved” the guy to help out Chad as the
guy was yelling red-faced at poor ol’ Chad. When the police finally showed up,
the guy was blaming Chad for taking a video and looking for support from the
audience. They were having none of it. As I and the rest of the crowd shielded
Chad, who was now seated, the girlies behind us made sure to point out to the
police that Chad did nothing wrong. The police believed us and took the other 3
into custody. They ended up using 4 men for Stache-man and Mr. Stand-Up was
glaring down Chad and exclaiming words that were happy-words.
Adrenaline was too
the max. People were congratulating us. We were thanking people for their help.
And I made sure to give the fella who was attacked a big thumbs up. We were
best buddies now. The experience had him, Chad, and myself bonded for life. We
threw up some prayers of thanks to God for the safe experience, and after 5
minutes, everything was back to normal.
We lost the game
3-1. But Chad and I had an incredible experience we will never forget.
We hitched a bus at
10:30 for the floating islands of Puno. We have been up almost 24 straight
hours.
Thank you Cuzco for
unforgettable times.
Thanks for reading.
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