So little time...

Fun Fact No. 62: Sunny side of the street. As the rainy season is winding down, it now rains when it’s completely sunny outside. Also, it’ll rain on one side of the street and not the other. If you have the misfortune of traveling on the rainy side of the street (no wider than Guadalupe), you’re soaked but on the other side you get a sunburn.

Fun Fact No. 63: June bugs. Here, they’re called papazos, or big potato bugs. They’re dumb as rocks and they’re literally falling from the sky. Sometimes they fall in your hair (ick) but mostly they fall on the sidewalk and then little kids get a kick out of crunching them. As June winds down, there are less of them, but they keep banging into things.

Well this last week has been quite the adventure. First of all, I had some really killer interviews. And as I type this blog, in a hotel lobby, I’m awaiting the Big One: the guy who composes the hits for all popular cumbia bands in Peru and Brazil. He sells his hits for the very low price of S/. 1500 (about $500) and makes no royalties because piracy is what sells a band here. But since he sells a few hits a week, he’s rolling in the dough. And he happens to be in Iquitos this week. And I’m just waiting for him to show up!

Sunday the 24^th was San Juan. San Juan is the patron saint of Iquitos and the biggest holiday here – bigger than all other holidays (independence day, Christmas, New Years, etc.) combined. Nothing but party, party, party! The district of San Juan, on the south side of the city completely shuts down to make room for the carnivals and festivals and markets and parties and dances and bands and competitions. They had folkloric music and dance competitions, food competitions, chainsaw competitions (I felt like I was at the Ohio State Fair for that part of it) and the like. They made the worlds biggest juane, the most typical food from Iquitos. It’s rice, chicken, a hardboiled egg, olives, and saffron boiled in a bijao leaf. Pretty yummy but the first juane I ate this past weekend gave me food poisoning, so I’m less inclined to like the stuff. Anyway, the world’s biggest was a meter tall and a meter and a half wide. Dude!

On Friday night, I went to a velada (a religious dance) next to the main cathedral. That was where I ate the juane that doomed me until this morning, but it was still fun. It’s fun to dance with the old ladies and jump around (literally) to Los Solteritos, the other part of my research. I went to bed relatively early that night due to an upset stomach and exhaustion.

Explosión played at this local theme park called El Monte (the jungle) and it was quite the concert space – pools, tennis courts, basketball courts, jungle gyms…I’d always passed by it, but never actually entered. What a show!

The super-size Texas part of my San Juan weekend was an outing in The Big Truck. Mario recently bought a pretty sizable truck to transport lumber and was able to fit 36 people in the truckbed (including 3 babies and 5 little kids). Mario, Mario Sr., and Dina were in the cab. All that was missing was the Lonestar. Seriously! I’ve never EVER done something like that and wow besides the sore rear end from sitting for 2 hours in cramped quarters to get where we were going, it was FUN! We went to Nauta, the cute little town at the end of the highway (95 kilometers long) and bebopped around and then doubled back to Puente Itaya, a lovely part of the Itaya river that has a white sand beach and really cold water. We just swam and played volleyball and soccer and ate juanes (well, I abstained from the juane experience). We got back into town around 8pm and I hit the sack. I was completely exhausted!

I haven’t been sleeping well for about 3 weeks and tonight I’m going to take a sleeping aide. I think it’s just stress and anxiety resulting from the fact that I ONLY HAVE ONE MONTH LEFT AND I STILL HAVE SO MUCH TO DO!!!! Other than that, I’m great. I head to Lima tomorrow and then to Trujillo because Explosión is playing in both places. Plus I can go ahead and spend some time with my friends in Lima and say goodbye now rather than in August when I really leave. I just know that I’m going to be really sad when I actually leave Iquitos so I’d rather go straight to Austin rather than sit around in Lima for a few days. That’s the plan anyway.