Old town Cuenca

It’s a cold night and the streets, even brightly lit are no place for a drunken man. It hasn’t been a good day, but a drink and a toast have a not too subtle way of making me forget why. A few drinks in, some shoving with a couple of tourists, and I stumble out of the bar, the man pushed me pretty hard but I can make it out fine. Outside the cold is unforgiving, and I can’t remember the way home. The stone of the streets, irregular, make me trip and fall. The ground, its cold is inviting, dissipating slowly the warmth of my body…

We walked through some of the poorly lit streets of the colonial old town in the Andean city of Cuenca, like a troupe of scavengers; we had searched for exotic foods and had interesting things. After a long walk and an even longer sit down, we were on our way, laughing and enjoying our night. The streets once so alive, gave way to night, one were old buildings seemed to change. The effects of warmed wine already paled in contrast to the searing cold, the warmth of our hunt for a late night meal of some exotic rat like creature, a cuy, gone. The food had been plenty, but the walk had taken its toll. Our aimless trail, set about to search for drinks, was shortly cut by a fallen man my friends thought about helping…

They boys seem restless, the game is over, la colorada won, a 2 nil victory with just a few fights in the stands and yet the aguardiente keeps us going, eager for more. We easily beat up a couple of monos, dumbasses coming to our town to root for their shitty team. We also gang up on the guy with the hot girlfriend, stupid of him to bring her to our stadium. Juanito got to grab her ass and Pepe got a good handful of boobs, but we saw a couple of pacos walk our way and had to split. It was a cagada, but we keep walking around, we’ll drop in on something. The dark streets of the barrio colonial will show us a nice time, plenty of tragos to down and many gringas to joder. There we’ll find plenty of bars and drunken pendejos to beat up. We see someone down on the sidewalk, not really a challenge, so we just go by. Andres almost slips and we laugh our asses off…

It looks like a nice night, plenty of young couples walking around, hopefully a few romantics in the crowd to buy some of my flowers. They do seem pretty though, the young couples. Sometimes I wish my husband would be like that. I remember when we met in Gualaceo, he and his brother where buying some sheep from my father, we needed money for my younger brother’s trip north to the USA; it would be good for all of us that he could go there. Oswaldo was so sweet and strong then. He was nothing like the men in town, all old and ignorant. He was from the city and I knew that’s where I wanted to go. A few months later, he snuck into the farm and we ran away. Since then, things changed. But he does try; I just have to make sure the boy goes every day to school. It’s becoming hard to hide the bruises from him. Here sir, a flower or two for the pretty ladies...

The morning eventually arrives and the streets begin to flood with life, as light ushers the market folk and the early commuters to the many stores and old public buildings. The fountains start, and water fights its way through frozen old pipes. The church bells disturbing the hung over tourists, calling upon the faithful for morning service, many will probably go to that early mass. But none will notice or even care for a poor young man, still lying alone undisturbed.