im going to summarize and move on, sunday, i was carrying coats when i ran into maryjane and she convinced me to disappear for ahile and watch the corrida de toros with her. they ride wild horses and fight bulls, but dont kill them, and there was a cock figt which i just couldnt watch, but over all extremely entertaining. I still had the coats for some of the panaderas and so after a couple of hours and when it started to get cold, I escaped the stadium and wandered the 20 feet to the cargo where to my complete surprise everything was in complete party mode. I got my obligatory 40oz as I walked in then was dragged around by Nilda and Ronaldo who were passing beer and making nicities as part of their mayadoro duties. This night until about 1 I stayed in the cargo dancing drinking more dancing more meeting people, definately more drinking etc. too much fun. then a lot of people started to leave and some drunk guy was giving me hassle so I made a slick exot to avoid another beer and headed off to the main plaza. Here I ran into Mary Jane and we headed to Cactus for a bit, it´s a bar, and another beer or two. Left there ran into some friends, danced in the plaza for awhile and I got walked home at around 430 and passed out.
Note: A lot of the festival I was substantially drunk, it´s not because now I enjoy heavy drinking or wanted it this way, it´s just that the culture of the festival is that some people are obliged to give drinks and I as a guest soon realized that refusing is considered a bit rude. As a special guest I think I recieved more attention as well as to whether I was being served which at points made it impossible to be without a drink for more than five minutes. The last point which made this difficult is that in Ollanta, I think they find it amusing to have drunk foreigners. With this in mind, I tried hard at first to avoid it, but decided later with all their hospitality, if this is how they want me, so be it. All of this is to say, I drank a lot but try not to judge that at face value, I was trying to do what was culturally right.
Monday I woke up at around 7, little tipsy still, but I think thats how most Ollantanios manage to do 4 days anyways, went found Nilda hung out and helped for a bit, they danced to the plaza and moday traditionally is the day when the danec troops try to visit all the other troops cargos, we hit up two but the panaderas werent very ambitious. I was dragged/danced back to the cargo for lunch and then we went to the cemetary to dance and sing for those that couldn´t leave the cemetary to join the party, dead people. This was the first of several sweet and ridiculously awkward moments. At the end the mayadoro was thanking everybody and passing out beer and he says señorita pase pase por favor, I decline by pretending I don´t understand and am dragged into the center of the qapac qolla, he talks about how I´m very kind and special that I would come and help prepare food for their cargo and how it was delicious and the entire group owes me a mil thanks for my help. yes. then says this songs is for you and the group does a short song in quechua for me. oh yeah. i tried to say how i owe them definately not the other way around thanks for the hospitality, that was so great and sooo awkward, but only for me. then i dont know, things get messy, i believe we did another 3 hour shift in the plaza, more and more and tio freddy has a convo with me on the mike in the middle of the square i decide to pass out early at 1, or rather escaped anothe party at the cargo. monday is the big procession and I walked very near the front down to a small church below and across the river of ollantaytambo, the highlight of this is later in the day they have an event where they string up corn like a pinata ad people ride horses and try and catch the corn and if you do you win a chicken, but the next year have to bring 7 chickens, it all confusing. then lunch, or should i say lunches. we were at the cargo and some men from a different cargo come in, nilda waved to me to come over and before I understand we are dancing out of the cargo and leaving. best part, they had super cool hats that I got to wear. Then we went and were given lunch at their cargo cuy fritter things, etc. and my very own 40 or should i say my very own 2nd 40 for the day, plus some mini beers along the way. I guess what happened is that nilda and ronaldo were called and they brought me as their daughter to this special lunch which is too sweet for words. later we took off, me not walking so good due to super HAVING to finish my 40 in 30 min and are walking and one qapac qolla calls me over, i walk over he places me somewhere and out of nowhere CRACK, i got whipped kids and damn that hurt for what should have been a quite dulled feeling. we party hard in the plaza and i am constantly handed special beer gifts and i dance and drink moving between the qapac qolla, my home crew and the sillka which has friends and previous bridges students in it. They all thought it was a good sign I was whipped, it means Im part of the group, not just a gringa watching in. i think i crashed about 5 or 6 in the morning. so thats the festival, i survived and honestly, though I thought at points I would die of exhaustion or alcohol poisioning, it was completely worth it. It probably is one of the coolest things I´ve done in my entire life.