So Katie and I were going to Inti Fest. We caught the local bus to the official ´Inti Bus´not far from Miraflores, but soon discovered that organisation was not one of the things included in the price of the ticket. There was no one there, and we chased some wild geese around the block for a while until someone finally came and brought us to the bus which wasn´t where it was supposed to be. There we waited for another 2hrs over time for more people for the bus, playing hackey-sack to the staring uni-crowd at Ricardo Palma Universidad. Alfredo Benavides is a very busy road, yet we saw this guy pushing his load along in the traffic; top job son. Three wheels good, four wheels bad.
The trip to Playa Asia went well enough, but to get there we had to stop and ask for directions multiple times - remember this is the official festival bus¡ When we arrived we soon discovered that we couldn´t get in... why¿ Security didn´t know, of course, but I soon deduced that it was because the (dis)organisers had not yet put up their VIP vs. general admission exclusion zones. So we had to wait until 7pm to get in - the flyer advertised a 1pm start. In the meantime we set a tent, swum in the cool sea and watched the sunset.
Inti Fest was set up with the sound in mind. Three distinct areas all equipped with face-melting sound systems kept the punter dancing, moving and interested. There were indigenous artisans selling wares, indigenous performers from the Andes and illuminated plastic bottle sculptures. Cleaners also scrounged bottles for recycling. The self-professed ´ecological festival´ was however not so good at promoting other values like responsible drinking, reducing consumerism and a local economy, with large alcohol and energy drink corporations erecting all kinds of advertising and 10 metre-high inflatable Jagermeisters (like that one Thiess young-uns¿). Of course groups of young girls clad in not much advertised things like Listerine and Burn energy drink. We were also not allowed back out to our tent once we entered.
However the music was brilliant. Highlights included Barem from Argentina and Nick Curly from Germany, who along with many other local and international DJs immersed us in thick funky house, bass-driven minimal and trippy deep house. The crowd was young - I saw many young girls there that could not have been 18. We met several locals and a few different international fellow ravers. Katie boogied on until the wee hours, then retired to the tent. My feet were made for dancing however and I sweated it out until 4am. By that stage I was noticing the tell-tale signs of many lost souls in the crowd - people whose drugs have worn off and are now looking to anyone or anything but themselves for salvation.
´Where are my friends¿´ , ´Why don´t I want to dance anymore¿´, ´I´m not really enjoying myself but I just can´t leave´. Hehehe.
The next morning´s return to Lima was predictably not straightforward. Where was the IntiBus we were promised for 10am¿ Rhetorical question, sorry. We caught 3 separate buses to eventually arrived back at our hostel. Great weekend - the dark photo with a bit of blue is a performer suspended 5 or so metres above the ground on a cloth rope in acrobat poses.
So for the next five days I essentially did nothing, wandering listlessly eating mangoes through the familiar streets of Miraflores, enjoying the ambience created by the same multi-variety low-quality car alarms sounding off at every street corner. I passed a day in Barranco, the cool suburb. I saw lots of movies. Lots of people stared at me - I know I´m hot, but hey, come on, even models get sick of being the centre of attention all the time, right¿. Some laughed also, I assume because of my hair - like I said its a very conservative, Catholic society over here, even in the heart of touristy Lima. Glad to be on my way.
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