"Let's try to get into the stadium"

Friday June 7th, 2013

After spending the day working on blogs and doing research, I decided to take a break and watch some of the highly anticipated Peru soccer game. Peru was playing Ecuador in a FIFA world cup qualifying match. The significance of this game was if Peru lost or tied they would be out of the tournament. The pizza place next to us was gearing up for the game with lots of people expected to eat, drink, and watch the game. The Peruvians were glued to the television and with every turnover they shouted Spanish. Matt told me that the stadium was fairly close and prodded me to walk with him down there. I said ‘why not’, grabbed my jacket and wallet and headed east on Ariqupes St. The streets were quieter and no matter where we were, we could hear the game being broadcasted on a nearby radio or television. After five minutes we could hear the roar of the crowd and around ten minutes into our walk the Peruvians scored a goal. The cars honked nonstop and the security guards rushed to see the replay in the bars. People were yelling ‘goal’ everywhere! When we got to where the stadium was in site, Matt stopped and bought a jersey. It took some bartering and some rough Spanglish but he walked away wearing white and red. As we got closer the security barricaded off the street leading to the stadium, but before we turned around and walked back, a man approached us with tickets. The Peruvian shoved the tickets in my hand and within two minutes he walked us through two security check points. At the entrance to the stadium the bartering began. He wanted 500 soles for two tickets but we clearly did not have enough. Matt turned one way and I turned another. We both began trying to buy a ticket for what we had in our wallets. Finally one man would accept what we had and for the mixed price of 50 dollars and 100 soles, I got my ticket. We got patted down, tore through the gates and sprinted up four flights of stairs. After working our way through a crowd of military and firefighters who lined the inter stadium exits, we walked towards our section. We found our row and pissed plenty of people off on our way to our acclaimed seats. They were taken but we did spot two empty seats next to each other. We took them and embraced what we just accomplished.

At half time, people were ready to lose an arm and both legs trying to climb over us to take a picture with the man behind us. It was Carlos Alcantara, one Peru’s most famous actors. After about 300 people clambered over us, I spoke to Mr. Alcantara a little and got him to take one last photo with us. The game was exciting and kept everyone on their toes. The crowd was electric and the chants never stopped flowing. Something else that never seized was the noise produced from little horns. They got louder when something in favor of Peru happened and only paused when the crowd hissed at the opponents during substitutions. All in all it was an experience I will never forget.

Viva Peru

~JH