Living in Peru : your everyday companion

I hadn’t know him for long at the time of this story.   We had met in Norton’s a few times half a year ago and then recently he came back into town.   That was when I rode with him to Ollantaytambo and got my first taste of his driving.   It was later that night in Ollantaytambo that I got my first real taste of his humanity.  
   
We were in the bar, La Puzanga drinking a mix of jungle brews.   Somehow the mix didn’t sit right with me and I, who consider myself an accomplished drinker, got kneewalking drunk.

Around two in the morning I realized that it was time for me to throw in the towel.  I lurched off my stool and announced my intention to go back to my hostal, a walk of about ten minutes through the town and down a dark and deserted dirt road.   Glen took it upon himself to walk me home.   There were others in this drinking bout who had known me longer who made no such offer.    Maybe it was just that they respected my abilities.  Or maybe it was that the big Aussie, the truck driver, the Mad Max amongst us, saw someone in need.   He insisted upon walking me all the way to my door.   Then he went back and slammed on with the group until five the next afternoon.  I woke up the next morning, oddly enough without a hangover, but with a clear memory of how this guy stood up for me, practically walked for me.  Later I got an inkling of why. 

During the next week I continued seeing Glen almost every night at Norton’s.   One Saturday night around 10:30 he casually says, “I was supposed to go to  Porto Velho tonight.  One of the dancers is a friend.  But I don‘t know....”

Porto Velho!  A new disco out near the airport with a naughty reputation.   I had in mind a strip joint, a lap-dancing club, maybe even a little bit of a whorehouse.  

“Come on, Glen.   I’ll go with you.  I want to see this place.”

That was all the push Glen needed.  We were on our way.

Porto Vehlo is one of the few clubs in town that charges to get in.  Most of them claim that they do and they have hawkers out on the street passing out free passes.   But Porto Velho really  charges.  We paid our ten sols and entered.   A large open room, a big dance floor flanked by wooden tables and white resin chairs.  Soda and beer bottles on the tables and in the hands.   A full, but not crowded, dance floor.  Latin music.   Samba.   At the far end a bar, and high above the bar a  stage platform supporting seven beautiful, leggy girls... the dancers, all wearing the same yellow costumes, garments that revealed less than a bikini.

We worked our way to the bar and ordered beers.  Then Glen planted himself, his eyes locked onto one of the dancers, a wry smile on his big face.   

We were the only two gringos in the place.  The crowd around the bar wanted to clink glasses and shout “Salud!”   Someone offered to stash my mochilla, my little backpack, so that I can dance with more freedom.  Glen tells me it’s okay.  The guy is a bouncer here, as well as a genuine cop.   It seems that everyone wants to talk to us.  It’s all very friendly.   I think of what it would probably be like in the states for two white boys to walk into a  black club, or a Mexican club.   Not like this... not in my experience. 

A plump girl in overalls is dancing ferociously.   A boy next to me points to her and says to me, “My seester.  You want to dance with her.”

You want my seester, meester?   Maybe there’s some truth to Porto Vhelo’s  whorehouse reputation

Then there she is, in front of me and we are in a wild dance.  Most girls here dance sort of near you, not with you.  But not this one.   She is looking directly into my eyes and locking onto my moves, dancing  and laughing with abandon.  We carry on to the end of the song and then she is off dancing with someone else.  No puta, no whore here, I think. but then a little later her brother, if that is what he is, asks me to buy him a beer.   So that’s the deal.  The guy’s selling dances with his sister for beers.   It seems harmless enough, so I buy the beer.   It was worth it.  The little chubette was great to dance with.

After the show is over, the show girls, now in street clothes, come down and join Glen and me at a table.   They are beautiful.  One, especially.  She is model quality.  Her name is Karol.  I dance with her for a while and watch others watch her move.   Later I take a photo of her for my “Disco Babes of Cusco” collection.  A tiny bit of her yellow costume  shows above the high collar of her sleeveless blouse.

Glen doesn’t dance, but he’s sitting there with his girl in his lap looking like he’s having a very fine time indeed.

On the way home he tells me that people kept asking if I was his father.   Glen is a year younger than my oldest daughter, so I told him that I was certainly old enough to be his father.    Nothing else was said about it.  

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