Well as promised by everyone, Fiestas Patrias was sweeeeeeet!!! On Tuesday morning at 9:30 we all met together downtown to buy the booze and take the micro to Catapilco. We were a group of about 20 and so it's only natural that we bought 20 bottles of Pisco, one for each of us! Along with 15 bottles of wine, and 10 cases of beer of course. We headed out on our micro to Catapilco which is about two hours away. I didn't really understand this before but its a lot like a state fair event but people camp and there's a huge party dance tent at night. There was a rodeo, a circus, an artesian art fair, food trucks and much more.
We arrived before a lot of the people did on Tuesday and started right away making lunch! We made anticuchos which are kebabs essentially! We cut up chicken, pork, steak, chorizo, hot dogs, peppers and onions.
Leah, Karla and Francisca on Monday had made all the empanadas for our group, I think around 150 total! We also had pebre which you eat with bread and/or chorripan which is chorizo and bread. The bread we ate was pan amasado which is a more rustic bread that's tougher on the outside but extremely soft and delicious on the inside. After stuffing my face with all this food and washing it down with some wine it was time for a nice snooze. Time went so fast while we were there, one minute it would be lunch time and the next thing you knew it would be time for la once. It reminded me of summertimes in france when our whole days revolved around food. After breakfast lunch is prepared and then after lunch is cleaned up, dinner is prepared and then everyone sits around the table for hours drinking wine and talking. One of the reasons I think I feel so comfortable here in this lifestyle is for that reason exactly. That first night we started our carrete (fiesta) early enough to where I was passed out by 1 am, which is very early for here to say the least. I actually started feeling nauseous at this point. I thought sleeping would make me feel better but on Wednesday the 18th, I felt terrible. I'm about 85% sure I had a piece of pork that wasn't fully cooked. I remember distinctly thinking "ooooh this could be a bad time" after eating it. Sure enough, I was sick alllllllll day on the 18th. I woke up at noon this way and spent the whole day in bed basically feeling terrible and nauseous. It was actually a big downer on my week cause it was the actual day of the celebration and I was feeling terrible! At 10:30 I was able to get out of bed and watch in a lot of pain everyone drink a lovely looking punch and dance like crazy until the early morning hours. It was so laaaaaaaaaaaaame!! Someone had given me a little seltzer water packet thing to help me with my stomach but it just made it worse and from there I was almost writhing in pain. I ended up going to Karla house in La Canela which is about 40 minutes away, and sleeping in a bed with a bathroom nearby. We had bought some medication and I felt better almost immediately and I slept like an angel in a bed with a heated blanket.
pebre:
On Thursday after a good nights rest I felt a lot better! I was able to eat again and actually was able to focus. Thursday was much better for me, I tried a few different traditional summer foods like pastel de choclo and mote con huesillos. Pastel de choclo is kind of like a moist, upside down shepperds pie with cornbread. There's a layer of meat on the bottom with hard-boiled egg interspersed throughout, covered in a think layer of sweet, moist corn bread. It was delicious. Mote con Huesillos is a drink made of peach juice, and wheat kernels or something like that and canned whole peaches. It looks very strange but it's a deliciously, strange mix of things and I'm a big fan.
Pastel de Choclo:
Mote con Huesillos
I had decided to wait to go home on Friday so that I could enjoy another night and party with everybody, as I had had such crappy nights before. However I still fell asleep early at 1:30 but I woke up at 4:30 and satyed up a few hours with everybody and had a good time! The guys in our group ended up staying up till 10:30am and sleepiong until 3:30! What crazy chilenos.
All in all it was a really, really good week full of way too much food, good music and good laughs. It was a downer that I got so sick for the actual day but I was still able to enjoy most of it! Here are some more pictures of the week:
My friend Luis and me wearing a traditional Huaso hat:
Here is some of our group of gringos that came along:
Benito on the left, another gringa on the right:
Benito's sister Karla, who is like a sister:
Some fo the dudes:
The rodeo:
potatoes, meat and carrots over the fire:
late night fire talk:
Coty, who stayed with us late every night, played guitar, and enjoyed being outside:
That's it for now <3
No comments:
Post a Comment