Day 4—Sunday, July 24—Cuzco→Puno

Adam woke me up a little before 10am, wondering whether or not I wanted to go to the big soccer game that day: Cuzco’s Cienciano vs. Lima’s Universitario. The winner would be league champion. I declined his offer, though, due to the fact that I felt pretty drained from doing the whole Machu Picchu dance the day before; thus, Adam gave my ticket away to a friend at the albergue, Edmundo. When I arrived at breakfast, Adam was wearing his jersey, working on his second beer and had a Red Bull in his pocket for later. Soon thereafter, however, I realized that the albergue’s two newest volunteers, Andere and Ainhoa, a couple of attractive Spanish girls from el País Vasco who use “vosotros” and pronounce Cuzco like “Cuthco,” would be attending the game as well, so I changed my mind and decided to join the group, making eight of us in all. I found a 2x1 ticket without much hassle outside of the stadium and then proceeded to quickly find a local friend willing to split the ticket with me. Together, we all put ourselves in the 4-block-long line that led to the entrance. Every ten minutes or so, the line shortened, which led the rest of us to make a mad dash to catch up to a spot closer to the front. In between dashes I drank a beer. Luckily, Lucía and Rocío found a shortcut in on the other side of the stadium and we found our way in fast.

We sat down in the Cuzco section. I was the only one in the group cheering for La U, but didn’t cheer too loudly because loyal fans of Cienciano vastly outnumbered me in terms of manpower, volume, and loyalty. They also came up with a number of creative, though vulgar, insults for the other team and sang and danced during the entire game. The nearby mountains cradled the stadium, giving it more grandeur than el Matute in Lima. The game proved to be more exciting as well. At halftime, Cienciano was up 1-0 on a header off a corner kick. Andere and I left our seats to procure some chicha—a colorful, corn-based, mildly alchoholic beverage—from out of a bucket for the crew. When we got back to our seats, I got some popcorn from one of the vendors too.

As the game resumed play, things started looking pretty bleak for La U, and then the middle-aged man sitting next to me wearing his Cienciano jersey gave me a thorough and manly embrace once his team scored a second goal late in the second half. That’s how it ended: 2-0.

After the game, Adam and I headed over to the bus station to buy our tickets to Puno. We gave ourselves an hour and a half to get ready and stock up on some supplies, taking off as the afternoon sun went down around 5.30. I couldn’t see much out my window, save a few sporadic fires that looked like miniature lighthouses in the distance. Much to our chagrin, and that of rest of the bus as well, no movie was shown. The ride also took longer than it was supposed to: we arrived in Puno after 1.30am instead 11.00pm. Nevertheless, we quickly found a hostal for the night.