By far the most visible and hilarious tradition here is the color yellow, which you are supposed to wear for good luck. But the emphasis is not on yellow t-shirts or hats (which are present but not overwhelmingly so) but on yellow underwear, which the week before new years could be found being sold from street side stands lining the five blocks of the main street and the entire market of Huaraz. And the selection!! We’re not talking just your plain old fashioned conservative style. I won’t go into excessive detail, but glittery, sparkly, short, long, carton characters, “happy new year”—you name it is was there. And yellow. And on top of all that, the two high quality brands of yellow underwear available are Boston and Stripper (too good to make up…).
So on the last day of 2010 we ventured into market town, looking for yellow underwear. This lead to the numerous hilarious interactions of women and men, ranging from teenagers to people old enough to be our grandmothers, trying to sell us underwear street side. The general conversations were a mix of English (mostly the word “mister”), Spanish and Quechua, them telling us to buy yellow underwear, us either saying no or keeping on walking, and them insisting we needed it to impress the pretty girls, and everybody cracking up.
Later that evening, having donned our yellow underwear, we made our way over to Café California, a Huaraz gringo haven that had agreed to shut its doors to the general public and let the Peace Corps volunteers have a potluck/party. Luckily, both the owner and the barista like us a lot, which I guess makes sense when you are a group of 20 gringos who come every two weeks and drink copious amounts of coffee and eat lots of food. So we threw up a ton of yellow streamers and put out a bunch of what I can only describe as other yellow crap (2011 glasses, yellow Styrofoam hats, leis etc) and enjoyed the food our friends cooked, company and beverages through the last hours of 2010.
And at midnight, Peru and Huaraz really showed why they are so awesome. It started with grapes. As soon as we were done wishing each other “happy new years!” and giving hugs and such, bowls of grapes were passed around and everyone ate 12 as quickly as they could, one for each upcoming month for good luck. Then we went outside where fireworks and firecrackers were going off everywhere (for the past week, any stand that had not been selling yellow underwear was selling fireworks). And on top of that, a few other friends and I had brought in our old clothes to make into a big doll that gets burned (this is supposed to bring financial good luck for the New Year. Or at least finally make you get rid of that ratty old shirt). And despite the fact that it was about half filled with my DISGUSTING old socks, it burned well and we all enjoyed taking part in the custom (although as Pete pointed out—how quickly would you get arrested in the US for burning a pile of clothes in the middle of the street?). So at around 12:15, with champagne being passed around ( I do not recommend the 10 sol vintage), socks and shirts still smoldering, the sky still lighting up with fireworks, and occasional flashes of yellow underwear, it was very clear that the city scene takes the cake on New Years. And although the night continued, I will leave the story there for the sake of my mother and potential future employers…Happy 2011 everybody.
