A Peruvian Wedding

Last night I was invited to the wedding reception of the hotel housekeeper. I had not yet met her, but our lead guide, Jose,  insisted that I come and take part. He told me there was free food, music, and drinks....how could I resist!

As Jose ran home to change, I inquired with the cook on what the custom was in this part of Peru for a wedding gift. I was told that you can either buy a case of beer for the party or give a cash gift to help offset the cost of the wedding and reception. I was going for beer, but Jose suggested I just give money.

Jose told me that it is normal for then entire town to be invited to the reception. Being a small town, most of the locals know each other. I however only knew Jose, and I had just been formally introduced to Luciano and Carlos. I was the only gringo there, but as soon as I arrived, they made me feel as if I had lived there my entire life.

Food was being served as we arrived and we were handed a cerveza when we walked in. The first plate (yes, the first plate) was about a pound and a half of roasted whole-hog that had the taste of Kansas City's best BBQ pulled pork, with a side of tamale and pan (dense flat-bread). The women running the show found us make-shift seats and handed each of us a pisco sour (a popular celebratory drink in South America made with egg whites), which was followed up by some sort of green pina colada shot that was the consistency of saliva just after eating a hearty meal.

After the first meal, there was a lot of conversation and more shots. The time came for gift giving shortly thereafter and Jose told me the process. I was to walk up to the man with the microphone, tell him my name and how much I'm giving, then lay it on a plate in front of the bride, groom, and the parents as he announces my name and the gift to the rest of the party. I shake their hands, give them my felicidades (congrats), and am handed a 650ml Cusquena beer and a very large glass of chicha (a brownish sort of fermented corn alcohol), which I am supposed to salude and chug in front of everyone.

Then there was cake, followed by more conversation time, and more shots going around. The conversation topics varied from the local men's love of fair skinned women, how they learned the English language (not from formal education), smoking cigars, cigarettes, and marijauna, to religion and the upcoming festivities for the next few months while I am there. This weekend there will be a religious celebration that lasts 24 hours per day, for four days! We will be woken up promptly at 0500 on Friday when they set off a series of bombs. The bombs let you know that the party has begun. The celebration consists of music, food, dancing, and you guessed it, more alcohol. During our conversation, I saw one of the cooks walk out of a back room with her hand wrapped around the neck of a live cuy (guinea pig) and into the kitchen. I was hoping this was meal number two, but unfortunately the cuy eluded me once again.

Jose and Luciano wanted me to see the customary dance that the men do for the women during the courting process, so we headed to the dance floor and the band kicked up again. We did not get to see this particular dance, but I was quickly pulled to the dance floor by two older women, one of which certainly did not understand the concept of becoming stagnant in your silver years. We danced for several very long songs and I was instructed on the proper Peruvian dance technique. It's not a difficult dance, but a very quick one and I was pretty well smoked after climbing all morning.

While dancing, the second meal started to come out, plate by plate. Let's talk about this process for a minute. The point of multiple meals is to keep the party going. You arrive and drink a little,. Then you get a ton of food in you to keep you from becoming drunk to quickly. Gift giving and more booze (see above) follow not long after. Then more booze to make you festive, followed by dancing  and other wedding events (cake). A second meal to keep you fat and happy and to soak up some of the booze, which follows. More dancing and I am told a third meal comes later in the evening, but my friends had had enough and needed to be up early for work the next morning so they were ready to call it a night.

Before we left, Carlos introduced us to an older man he knew from the community, named Claudio. As we were introduced, Claudio didn't really like my given name, and over the next thirty or forty minutes, I had been given a new name and was sort of adopted by Cludio and his wife. I was told they are my new Godparents. My new godmother was very insistent that it was time for Claudio to leave, and he was clearly past the legal limit of intoxication, but we continued to chat for several minutes as she walked away, came back, yelled at him, and walked away again. Finally we bid adieu to our new friend and called it a night. Judging by the amount of booze being circulated and the number of folks left dancing, the party must have gone on until the we hours of the night.

On our way back to my hotel, I found out that the parade which had been playing for the last two days was for the wedding. The marching band had been hired by the groom's family to play what seemed like all hours of the day. The procession walked up and down the streets of Ollantaytambo to let the town know of the marriage. Once I found out this was the cause of the incessant noise that kept me from sleeping and woke me up early, it seemed much less annoying and I was glad to have experienced it. The band could be heard far into the mountains that morning on my three hour ruins hike.

I am so excited to have had experienced this celebration, and I look forward to getting to know my new friends more as the summer goes on. Hopefully I will be able to write about my other experiences before this weekend's festivities, but as for now, there are some trails that need my attention. Until next time friends, Adiós y que Dios los bendiga!