The invite

We drove through the streets of the shantytown, heading for the birthday party of Pedro’s friend. The deserted streets framed by crumbling buildings were very different from Miraflores where our hostel was located. The taxi stopped in front of a building that seemed even more run down than the others, with Pedro standing out front of a crooked staircase leading to the roof, smoking and joking with an unsmiling man.
We mounted the stairs and emerged on the rooftop with the light of Lima casting shadows over the miles of dilapidated buildings surrounding us. Low orange light cast reflections off of pools of congealing blood on the ground. A canopy above gave the rooftop a close feeling, and the farmers who had come for the birthday party bearing prize cocks for fighting had been drinking heavily for hours before we arrived. A circular cage ten feet in diameter with a dirt floor, which was raked after every match, stood on one end of the rooftop. Before each match the roosters were shown around the area, then allowed to peck each other for a few moments. After this the caretakers retreated to their respective corners and attached the blades to their left ankles. Then the combatants were placed on either side of a white board, which was lifted at the ring of a bell.
The action was always slow to begin. The birds would elongate their bodies vertically, sometimes defecating and making a plaintive sound at each other. Eventually one would slowly, cautiously, raising one foot very deliberately and putting it down, start to approach the other.
And then a flurry of feathers, gasps from the drunken, jovial crowd, and one or both of the cocks were down. If the fight wasn’t long enough, or it seemed like the birds had more fight in them, one or both of the caretakers would breathe sharply into the mouth of the stunned, dying bird, giving it the breath to continue fighting.
Everyone watched the gringos for our reaction, and laughed when the ladies became flustered. Lining the low walls on either side of the roof were roosters waiting for a chance to fight, calling loudly at certain moments, as if they had all agreed on it beforehand. One in particular seemed like he wanted nothing so much as to fight me.
We drank cusquena cervezas and pisco sours as the feathers flew on the drunken men hitting on the western women I had brought with me to the party. We played drinking games in this unforgettable setting, shared eyes with others we would probably never see again, intense, shining eyes, and felt the pureness of the desire of the Peruvians to explain why and how they loved this tradition of theirs. Their enthusiasm was contagious, though the experience was visceral, raw.
As my companions became increasingly upset I noticed that the man who’s birthday it was tried again and again to explain the custom. He told us it had been passed down in his family since his ancestors had brought it to South America over five hundred years ago. He said many in Peru don’t like it, but that for him, it was a family tradition. The farmers who had come from the countryside to celebrate his birthday kept saying what a spectacular display this particular event was turning out to be.
There are two kinds of cockfighting: one in which the roosters are fitted with metal beaks, and the one we viewed involving knives on their ankles. A drunken man tried for 30 minutes to explain why he believed the pecking was the better entertainment, concluding his slurred diatribe with a gesture of distaste towards a fight that had ended too quickly. While I first thought the discomfort of my friends would lead us to exit the event early, at some point in the night everything shifted. A feeling of camaraderie descended, partly because the Peruvians came to respect the three of us for stepping out of our comfort zones to experience something of theirs. Suddenly we were making merry and the girls were in the front row, fascinated.
At some point after that, between periods of pisco sour euphoria, the birthday boy came up to Pedro and said “I know America…and this one is irregular!” pointing at me. We all laughed late into the night.
I spent much of today recovering from last night. I returned to the South American Explorer’s Club and searched their map of the Amazon Basin for a couple of hours, finally finding the tiny tributary of the Rio Ahuayuna, the Rio Aucayacu, on the banks of which reside the last speakers of the Taushiro language. It branches off of the Rio Tigre about 75 miles west of Iquitos. When I walked into the clubhouse I was greeted by a man I hadn’t met before, who told me I was already famous around the clubhouse…though he didn’t explain why. Perhaps it’s my lunacy. I’ve been known to eat cow heart on a stick, and I found it delicious.