Party Time

Behind the Scenes

I woke up early and dressed quietly while the other guys slept. We were in the town of Chalhuanca, in the Peruvian Andes, and I had heard that there would be a bullfight today. If I played my cards right, maybe I could help! I walked uphill, to the house of the "capitanes" of the Festival. Every year, a different family hosts and pays for the week of the festival. I had met the queen yesterday, and she had invited me to breakfast in the courtyard with the other participants: band members, dancers, bullfighters, bull wranglers, and chefs.

It all started with a rumor…and a very sick Dan Wallace. We had holed up in a dingy hostel, in an equally dingy town, with not much to do. Wallace had gotten sick. The cold of the misty mountain pass, and then the bone chilling descent afterwards had done him in. We found him at the first roadside truck stop, wrapped in his sleeping bag, holding a kitten for warmth. So we ended up staying in Abancay for a few days to heal Dan up. That’s when the front desk man told Daniel about the greatest festival in all of the Apurimac region (where we happened to be). Challhuanca, the home of the ‘Party of the Lord of Animation’. With a name as good as that, you knew it had to be worthwhile. Even better than that, it was on our way, and our three days of ‘hospitalization’ put us only a few days away from the beginning of the festivities!