Phew. Ok, this might be a long one.
So last night, Amanda and I decided to have a distinctly different Cuscquenian nightlife than we had had thus far.
We started the day about 5 pm, when we finally pulled ourselves out of bed (we were recovering from lack of sleep from the night before) and decided to eat dinner (or breakfast, or lunch, depending on how you look at it) at McDonalds. Amanda’s wallet was stolen two weekends ago, and McDonalds is one of the few restaurants that accepts credit cards. So we headed on over. After we sufficiently stuffed ourselves, we did not feel like going home (since we had spent all day in bed) so we did a couple turns around Plaza de Armas and up to Plaza San Francisco. We did this trail forwards and then in reverse. Along the way we decided to play our new favorite version of Where’s Waldo—spot The Curly Haired Jesus. We tend to run into Curly Haired Jesus quite often, so now it has become a game. Curley Haired Jesus is worth 1 point, and Brides were added to the game (2 points each). Last night the game ended with Amanda: 4 points (all from Curly Haired Jesus—yes that’s how often we see him) and Josie: 6 points (all from brides).
Anyways, despues de paseamos mucho we went to our favorite hang out: Cross Keys. Cross Keys is a nice clean bar, with fun bartenders. The bartenders like us so much, in fact, that it is always happy hour for us at Cross Keys (maybe this is why it is our favorite bar). Plus, the drinks are strong, not too expensive to begin with, and the bartenders provide almost endless entertainment. (Plus, Christian, one of the bartenders is totally enamored with me and my continual rejection of him just makes him that much more enamored. But he’s fun and has perks like fun friends and happy hour drinks, so it works out. Plus, he is totally adorable, if not a TOTAL player—I mean, he’s a surfer boy from Lima who comes to Cusco during the winter to make money bartending—what can I expect except PLAYER). Anyways, after chatting with said bartenders we decided to return home for a little relaxation. This led to some TV watching and picture taking (on my part, Amanda and the cats were the subject of the pictures). After sitting around for a sufficient amount of time I convinced Amanda that we should not go to IncaTeam as usual (the source of the worse claustrophobia anxiety I have ever had) and instead we should do a tour of all the clubs in the main area, collecting free drink tickets and then actually cashing in on them. So we returned to the Plaza. First stop, Mushrooms. Actually, we made a brief stop at IncaTeam to see if our gay friend Eddie was there. After not finding him, but finding instead, my boss as well as many coworkers we quickly decided to be on our way.
Mushrooms turned out to be quite the swanky establishment and not the crowded disco I had originally imagined. Two weeks ago, a tourist fell from the window of Mushrooms (2nd story) and fell to his death on the cobble stone streets (rumor has it he was run over by a car right after he fell as well). So, after hearing this story, I had imagined Mushrooms to be a grungy crowded disco. There is a bar in the center with a bottle rack spiraling to the center of a mushroom. In essence, you sit at the bar under the cover of a mushroom. It is really quite impressive, I wish I had a picture. Anyways, one of my students, Yonaton, works there but that only turned out to cause awkward situations. He is not the most invested student and that made for some awkward interactions.
However, after Amanda finished her drink we continued on to the third floor of the building, a night club called Mama Africa. This place we my kind of disco. There were people, but not too many, the music was danceable, all in all a fun place. However, my lack of inebriation, and Amanda’s exhaustion made it a short stop on or nightclub circuit. As we were heading down the stairs we, once again, ran into my boss. Oh awkward days.
We walk out of Mama Africa and smack straight into Christian After some awkward conversation with Christian he decided to head onto his favorite establishment and we decided to head into Ukuku’s. I had been to Ukuku’s once before and found it a fairly pleasant establishment. It has some tables for sitting, a bar area, a small dance floor, and a stage often featuring local live music. However, as we attempted to walk into Ukuku’s they decided to try and charge us S./ 10 (10 soles). Hahahaha. Yeah right. That was quite unexpected since girls, especially Gringa girls, usually get in anywhere in Cusco for free. Perhaps because they were desperate and it was almost 2:30 am.
So we continued up the street and around the corner to a club se llama Zazu. Amanda had a free drink ticket and Zazu we headed on it. Oh wait, no we didn’t. The bouncer at Zazu attempted to charge us S./ 20!!!! Hahaha, like that would ever happen.
So, Amanda searched deep into her pockets and came up with another free drink ticket, at a new bar called “The Shot Bar”. As the name suggests, this bar serves nothing but shots. It turns out the bar was just opened by a very friendly but forgetful Australian (?) lady. So we got our free shots. Amanda choked down hers, and I choked down half of mine. As we sat there, however, who would show up but our favorite bartender. So after forcing the rest of my shot on Christian we continued to his favorite establishment: Wachuma (or previously referenced in my blog as Dreadlock Bar). Tonight, however, no one got the death glare at Dreadlock Bar (ok, maybe not no one, someone is bound to piss me off at 3:30 in the morning). But this time there were a reasonable amount of people that I wasn’t on the verge of crying or hyperventilation.
This ended up being our final bar. Christian introduced us to his friends who were quite friendly. As Amanda pointed out this bar is not only a local bar, but a Local Local bar (or a Niche Bar, (significa que lots of Cusquenian would be out of place in this Dreadlock Bar). So we had pleasant conversation with these Dreadlock Boys (actually, none of them actually had dreadlocks, but I swear! Everyone else there did!). I refused to dance (big surprise, right?) was told I looked Israeli because of my curly hair. Was offered plentiful amounts of drugs (of which I refused—don’t you worry). Finally, after standing against the wall scowling for what I deemed a significant amount of time I decided I was better off making a fool of myself dancing. So I did. It was decently fun, until they played salsa music and then I was so worried about making a fool of myself that I awkwardly rocked back and forth in my from of “dancing” (it seems everyone in Cusco can inherently dance salsa).
Ok ok finishing up. So that was about the end of our night. We danced. Drank. Chatted. Drank. Danced. Chatted. And then fell into bed.
Oh wait, no. We went home, dying of hunger. So as we are in the kitchen decided what to make for dinner (or breakfast?) boom, the house goes dark. No electricity. So we use our gas stove for light. Light our one candle, and eat our dinner/breakfast/snack. Then we fall into bed. Ok, night over. Literally. The sun was coming up.
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