Today marked the closing of Carnival and left me with irreplaceable memories. Left Monte de Los Olivos at 5am and arrived in Pucallpa for breakfast. Enjoyed my typical peanut butter spread on a white bun chased with peach tea loaded with sugar. I LOVE peach tea. Slept the morning away and awoke to a barbeque a brewin’ in the courtyard of my house. YUM! Beef heart and chicken, yucca, potatoes, corn, and rice all grilled to perfection quickly filled my very happy belly. Though I still prefer not to know exactly what kind of meat I am eating, at the very least I am acclimating slightly and don’t want to vomit when I figure out it’s beef heart for lunch or duck lips for dinner J.
Every Sunday the mama of this casa invites me to “da la vuelta, no mas” and off we go. It’s like our 50s style Sunday drives only in Motocar. We load up the kids and moto around the city for an hour. The idea is to catch a break from the sometimes intolerable heat and enjoy the breeze that the speed of the motocar provides. I have learned to always say yes to any invitation as I never quite know what adventure is in store for me. However, today I actually felt pretty self-assured and coolio because this time I knew what we were off to do. Habits are forming, I´m getting the hang of things here, starting to have a clue you know. Well, as you can imagine, I didn’t have a clue. We stopped off at Ascela’s sister´s house and no sooner than exiting the motocar was I DRENCHED in the festivities of Carnival which include dousing friends and family members (or even anyone that walks by) with buckets of water. OK. I HATE being uncomfortable. I’ve never particularly enjoyed getting wet. I don’t like being messy. I meticulously dry my body after I get out of the shower. You get the idea. But I LOVED THIS DAY. Grandmas, Greatgrandmas, Dads, moms, sisters, brothers, and kids. We were ALL soaked and laughing and dousing and laughing and drinking beer of course, and dousing again and laughing. Most of the streets here are bumpy dirt roads so there was some mud bathing going on, some beer dousing, you name it. Motocars would pass and they would get doused too. It was hilarious. And then we began the dancing around the tree again which you all are already well-versed in. I cut down my second Carnival tree today. I really AM a deforester now.
Alas, cleaned up and went into town for my daily dose of my reincarnated grandmothers chocolate cake and here I am happy and clean in my bed ready for sleep.
Goodnight!
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