OF PISCO AND PERU: Once Upon a Lima Dawn. . ., PT.1

Pisco Sunrise:

Ingredients:

2 ounces of pure pisco

5 ounces of orange juice

1 ounce grenadine syrup

Ice

Preparation:

In a long glass, add about 4 ice cubes.

Add the pisco, orange juice and grenadine syrup, do it carefully so that the ingredients do not mix.

Garnish with a slice of orange and a cherry (optional).

~~~~

I awaken with blood-red slits for eyes and thousands of eighty-proof needles burning through my skull. Another hangover.

Sliding off the fancy hotel bedspread, I walk on lamb’s legs to the Cusqueña beer cans stacked like a tabletop modern art exhibit. All empty. Oh well. I look around and grab an opened Inca Kola bottle, then head out to the terrace to check out the skyline.

Basking in the sunrise from the preteenth floor at one of Lima’s finest hotels, I spy a man in the park down below. He appears to be enjoying an impromptu drunken Tai Chi and burpee workout, dressed like a refugee from an eighties South American discoteca. His ample gut bounces out of his multi-colored leisure suit when he dances unsteadily in the middle of a greenbelt that’s undoubtedly the favored toilet for every stray dog within a three mile radius.

After a five-minute performance, our hero finishes his wine bottle with a flourish, before collapsing into a stone cold deep sleep.

Betwen flat belches of Inca Kola, I rub my aching temples like a savantless idiot.

It’s done. I’ve launched myself smack dab into the capital of a country I know nothing about. A clean break. I’m quite possibly unemployed, but definitely more spiritually hopeful than I’ve felt in eons. Could this cross-cultural shock be the therapy I needed all along? Either way, what’s next?

What were those god-awful noises bellowing throughout the night? The sounds of my Pisco-soured brain imploding? Or perhaps Peru has lurched into a state of anarchy? Maybe a nice South American coup like the ones the mainstream propaganda outlets like to gloss over?

I imagine myself bunkered down inside the giant egg-shaped jacuzzi, training an AK-47 past the ‘Love Ewe’ sex doll and bricolage of toiletries towards the front door. On the other side, a steely-eyed ‘El Generalisimo’ stands to the front of his death squad, twerks his pencil-thin mustache and yells through gold-plated teeth in a Ricky Ricardo accent, “Openz up, Americano! We know you are in there! Viva la Revolucion!”

I knew I should’ve put that ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign back on the door.

Time to appraise the room. I paid for a one-time, fuck-it-all send up to greet the country in style, and this suite delivers. It boasts a public-cinema-sized wall-mount TV, a modern polycarbonate chair with a remote control I’m deathly afraid to touch, and a giant purple bed with a ceiling mirror in case I want to blow kisses to myself while I masturbate.

I place the Inca Kola bottle on the table next to the oversized bed and take a chair. A deep breath of stale, hotel air. Sweat beads roll down my cheeks. The nagging, negative vibe just won’t die. My stomach moans, then a burp fills my mouth with an acid-washed slurry.

Toilet time. Now.

Siphonic flushing sounds. The Big Spit’s over. Finally. The porcelain is so cold, yet so comfortable. I rise like a zombie king from the throne, wipe my watery eyes, and stare into the bathroom mirror. A stooped cartoon caricature of my father squints back at me:

A paunch that’s lost its will to defy gravity, wafer-thin lips, a greying hairline, a bony nose, huge bags under aquamarine eyes, all composed on a pufferfish face that makes me look like a sick mole.

Pretty normal, methinks.

Have I committed the biggest blunder in my life? My surroundings are hip, yet I feel like I’m some modern day Falstaff on a Truman Show reality TV channel entitled ‘Doug’s Fucked Up!’.

I plop down into the club chair, wiping spittle off my chin with a grimy bath towel. Am I genetically predisposed to these lame fuckarounds? Cursed? A botched DNA experiment between a near-sighted hermit crab and a eurotrash pimp?

How did I get here?

~~~~

I distinctly remember Juan Chavez International Airport, and following the passenger megaherd to the Llegadas internacionales luggage carousel, listening to the sexy female intercom voice greeting ‘Welcome to Lima Airport. . .’

Auntie M, Gus’ tour guide conscript, is missing on arrival. Even worse, owing to a battery charging catastrophe, my phone has run out of electric go juice, so communication’s impossible.

But I feel good about my Spanish, belting out confident “Holas” and “Graciases” to the bored and po-faced customs officials at the currency exchange post.

With every monosyllabic Spanish answer, my confidence grows. I took two years of the language in my high school, did I not? What could possibly go wrong?

And then I step into the clusterfuck of Juan Chavez Airport’s Arrivals area. With over 10 million people, Lima is the second-largest city in South America, and it sounds as if they all showed up at the airport to heckle me. A complete sensory overload of reeking armpits and guttural shrieks, it’s like stepping out into some Emilio Westphalen-inspired version of a ’90s grunge music video. Bug-eyed security dorks and airport employees look around anxiously as taxi drivers, chauffeurs, and genuine batshit crazies push and scream at the top of their lungs while holding up placards with exotic names on them. I’m confused, paralyzed with fear, unable to grasp even the simplest syllable tossed my way. Shell-shocked, I gaze helplessly into the mosh pit of frenzied faces, hoping to find Auntie M’s friendly face amidst the bedlam.

Doug, you’re not in Portland, anymore.

People of all stripes ask me unintelligible things, but my brain’s locked up, overloaded with foreign verb conjugations.

Calm down. Remember basic language training. Name. Rank. And make up a serial number if need be.

By my fifth lap around the airport, I stink of insufferable defeat, and even the cabbies are shunning me. It’s like I’ve got some shitmist malady or had keistered an ibogaine suppository prior to arrival and now I’m doomed to walk in circles around the airport for the rest of my days like a Golem with PTSD.

Is this the punchline in one of Gus’ sick jokes? ‘Aye Duck, fluck you and your stupid stories’.

I search around, seeking a savior, but there’s nothing but a blur of faces.

What’s plan B? Pissing myself silly, then playing “Hide and Seek” in a locked public toilet stall until the next flight out arrives?

Maybe?

Then I see it. A tortured scrawl on a piece of cardboard in a maelstrom of whirling bodies. My port in this storm.

A slightly built, tall twenty-something with the faint beginnings of a porn mustache firmly holds up the sign reading ‘LaLaLa Tours for DOuG’ with the ‘u’ squished between the ‘O’ and the ‘G’ like an afterthought.

It’s now or never.

“Hola.”

He turns around, squints, then forces a grin.

“¿Qué tal? Doog?”

“No Doog. Doug.”

A scowl and a burst of light-speed Spanish encoded in a hyperdrive filled with slang. My eyes glaze over. Say something. “¿Cuánto cuesta. . . uh. . . ?”

“You is. . . for Auntie M?”

Oh thank God. “Sí.”

He grabs the lightest pieces of luggage and we head out to his taxi. I have no clue where we’re going. Rolling out of the parking lot, it hits me just how vulnerable I am. Visions dance through my head of being cast in the starring role of a drug lord’s snuff film somewhere in the Amazon.

I learned an important insight, however. My Spanish skills truly suck.

Reader Warning: You may have some James Bond-type of training. You may be a NASCAR champion. You may have taken up ice road trucking as a relaxing hobby. In a former life, you may have been a world-renowned war correspondent or done three tours in Iraq. Or maybe you had to stitch your buddy’s legs back together after his wingsuit escapade went awry.

None of that tame horseshit will ever prepare you for the adrenalized extreme sport of driving in Peru.

Scientists theorize that the smallest thing in the universe is the size of a Planck length. It isn’t. The smallest thing in the universe is the amount of space a Limeño can squeeze their car into.

And squeeze they will, so learn to acclimate to having hundreds of mini heart seizures from all the four-wheeled metal coming at you.

There is no road rage down here. Only survivors’ grief. Death via head-on pile up on a four-way stop is a natural part of life in Lima, and should be embraced, not feared.

At first blush, Peru is a nation of walking suicides. Pedestrians crouch behind parked cars, a silent prayer in their throats, only to make the big leap of faith into the crosswalk, which looks like the Omaha Beach scene in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ with blaring car horns for a soundtrack.

Learn to enjoy darting perilously close to a tanker truck full of materiales combustibles, whose driver is throwing up on himself from a pisco hangover. Think of the bragging rights you’ll have after you tell your friends that you’ve just been sideswiped by a semi truck and your boring Subaru station wagon has instantly been converted into a convertible. Did I shit my pants? Who has the time? I haven’t even left my driveway yet.

After checking my pulse, I notice my taxi driver’s annoyance at all the traffic distracting him from the phone app game he’s playing. But really, who can blame him? After all, if you’re almost certainly going to get into a head-on collision today, why fight it? Maybe throw the opposing drivers off balance and complete your morning by commuting in reverse?

I brace myself against the seat as the taxi driver saves us a precious second by passing the ten cars waiting to turn on a newly minted green light. We dart into head-on traffic, past a woman on a unicycle juggling bowling pins for spare change, before quickly cutting off the lead car, leaving car horn blasts behind us.

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