Santa Eulalia

Weekend before last, after a few hours at the Hogar with the kids, we continued up the Rimac River valley for another 45-minutes, heading for an overnight getaway with our friends Julio, Maureen and Julito. Our destination was up a tributary where both the little village and the river are called Santa Eulalia. Many Limeños have rustic getaway homes here and the area is known for horses. We showed up, diverted around the little plaza because they were setting up for their annual founder's day fiesta, and made our way to a little walled retreat with 4 bungalows and a small, unheated pool.

We shared a bungalow, spending our time barbecuing and drinking beer while the boys ran around. The amenities were minimal, but we had come with coolers well stocked and our bocce set, so we had a lovely time. It was the warm weather for which we were totally unprepared...Santa Eulalia is so far inland that the Lima marine layer cannot reach it. One big topic was Julio's recently completed 2nd short film, completed just in time to make the 14-film cut for the Lima film festival (out of 300 entries). As I type now a week and a half later, the films have all been shown and we are crossing our fingers. In the meantime, I helped him with a poster design.

At one point on Saturday, the boys ran ahead of us to throw rocks in the little river (big stream?) as locals emerged from dusty roads, heading for the village celebration. At one point, back at the bungalow, the caretaker's small dog "Colita" ran out and barked at 4 passing horsemen, to their great amusement. They were dressed up and heading for the fiesta. Peru's national dance is called the marinera, in which a barefoot lady in a gown twirls a white handkerchief while the gentleman steps around her twirling his hat. Though I did not know this at the time, it turns out there is a version of this dance in which the men are on horseback, dressed as these 4 horsemen were.

Sunday we had a slow morning, barbecuing for lunch and then packing up. I was harboring the idea we might stop on the way out to see some of the fiesta, but bad luck struck in the form a gut-wrenching attack on Jen's stomach and it was all we could do to make the drive home without a messy mishap.