More Gringos Visit: Inebriation Ensues
Two buddies, Chuck and Steve, came to Arequipa for the weekend. Chuck arrived Thursday night and Steve arrived Friday morning. I planned on taking Chuck to Dady O’s – a sleazy reggaeton club downtown known for young easy women and dirt cheap drinks. But alas, Rosa called me around ten to tell me that she and a friend were at Deja Vu. She and I had arranged for her to line up a couple friends for Chuck and Steve. She was with the main English speaker, Evelyn, at Deja Vu.
Chuck and I arrived at Deja Vu and started drinking and dancing salsa, cumbia, and reggaeton. Chuck, when he’s not being a shy introvert, is really goofy and makes fun of himself to get laughs. Evelyn and Rosa had no idea what to make of him. Latino guys aren’t like that. The girls got a kick out of him. Chuck made out with Evelyn when we were all saying goodbye. That made me happy.
Friday morning, Chuck and I woke up at 6:30am (after having gone to bed around 3am) to pick Steve up from the airport. After naps, we all had lunch with Carlos – lomo saltado. When Dennis was here, he was able to communicate with Carlos a little, sometimes using hand signs and pantomimes. With Chuck and Steve, I had to translate everything.
I had to work while Chuck and Steve went to a liquor store. They started drinking hard liquor around 4pm and were quite buzzed up by the time I was had finished things. I took a nap and shower while they kept drinking and laughing with my new Dutch roommate, Karen.
Karen decided to come with us to Munay’s, a club on Dolores I chose because there are no gringos, hence a more authentic experience. I also chose Munay’s because if I were to engage in any misbehavior, there is about a 0% chance that any of Rosa’s friends would be there to see it. She and her friends only go downtown and occasionally to Tradicion.
Although Chuck, Steve, and Karen all said they had a great time, I thought Friday night was a disaster. I have no idea what happened, but we could not get anywhere with the women. Munay’s was overwhelmingly male this particular night, which didn’t help. It also didn’t help that Chuck and Steve had started drinking at 4 and were drunk when we left. It didn’t help that I took three shots of anisado in an attempt to catch up. And it didn’t help that, at dinner before the club, the food took a long time and we put down several mojitos. Oh well, they had a great time and we did manage to get pleasantly and numbingly wasted.
Saturday night was the designated night for Karen’s welcoming party. The party was to be at our apartment. I would’ve liked for Chuck and Steve to see Tradicion, which is only a dance club on Saturdays, but we couldn’t skip a party at my own apartment.
Before the party, we met Rosa, Evelyn, and Geraldine downtown for dinner and drinks. We drew a lot of looks – three gringos and three Peruvian women, who were assumed to be bricheras. After dinner and drinks and getting acquainted, we hit the party which was already underway. The party was a romp. Between 20 – 25 people, we went through two bottles of scotch, one bottle of anisado, and three cases of beer. We moved the dining room tables to make a dance floor, and it was packed all night long. Two Peruvian guys ended up vomiting in my toilet.
Chuck and Steve were going apeshit. People kept telling me that these gringos were the center of attention, or the life of the party, or that they were just crazy. I remember looking at Steve at one point and, after observing how he was dancing with so much excitement and passion, I worried that he might knock somebody out with an arm movement or knock somebody over with a hip-check. Neither one had been to Latin America before so they didn’t know that this is how it is.
When it was all winding down, Chuck and Steve were cuddling with their respective girls and I was talking to some girl in AIESEC (Rosa had left by this time). She told me to tell Chuck to come sit with her. I told her he was spoken for. I was pleased when Chuck and Steve made out with their respective girls.
For Sunday I had lined up a fulbito game since Chuck is a big soccer player. However, we opted out of soccer and a barbecue with the AIESECers in favor of having lunch with the girls. We met the girls and had lunch at a textbook, Peruvian countryside restaurant on the patio. We drank chicha de jora and beer. Chuck ate cuy - guinea pig. After lunch, we all went to the Mirador de Sachaca that overlooks the city. Then we went to Plaza de Armas and inside the Cathedral. I showed them the image of the devil, which I always feel the need to show visitors. We got stared at a lot on Sunday, the three gringos with their three bricheras. We all said goodbye in the early evening.
These gringo weekends are hell on me. Gringos come in town and everything is cheap for them and they want to go insane. It’s like I’m on vacation too. Chuck kept referring to Peru as his “big playground”. He loved it. At one point, I mentioned that I was thinking about my friend Martynas and entertaining the thought of spending some time in Lithuania. Chuck said, “I don’t see you leaving South America.” I am not leaving – I was just thinking out loud.
Chuck and Steve headed out for Cusco and Machu Picchu Monday morning.
Little Things
While I was writing this, I took a ten minute break to watch a fight outside. There were six drunk teenagers with their shirts off in the middle of the street. They kept yelling and they would take turns getting in each other’s face. They were carrying on so that cars either stopped and waited for them to move or punched the gas to go around them. I had no idea what was going on or who was going to fight. I wondered to myself how I would fare against all six of them. Then two of them started punching and grappling. It was pretty weak. Then they all walked home together.
It was reported Sunday that InBev and Anheuser-Busch have come to an agreement to sell AB for $70 / share. About a year ago, I was in Rio de Janeiro drinking in a bar with two friends – Gabe and Marcela. Gabe and I were staying with Marcela, who works for AmBev (the Brazil unit of InBev). She works on Pepsi, but we ran into a bunch of her coworkers who were sales reps for their beer brands, most notably Brahma. Latinos in general are really interested in gringos and were engaging me in conversation. But when they found out I worked for Anheuser-Busch for two years, they went apeshit. They told me that AB was in Rio that weekend for talks about InBev buying them. I called bullshit. I had no idea what the truth was, but it just couldn’t be. When I worked for AB, it was the biggest brewery in the world with the most iconic brand. There was no way AB would sell to InBev.
I went so far as to proclaim that if AB sold to InBev, I would leave the States. I would move out of America for my career, which had not occurred to me at the time but I said it in all seriousness of someone who had been drinking in Brazil for a week. I looked it up on the Internet that night and learned that, in June 2007, they were in merger talks as opposed to buyout talks. Well, low and behold, things have changed and InBev out-maneuvered AB to put themselves in a position to buy the company outright. But my favorite part of this story is that I made good on my promise months before buyout rumors even started. How’s that for foresight?
Check out my take on The Unsolicited InBev Offer for Anheuser-Busch.
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