Happpy Peruvian Birthday....TO ME

Have you ever stood barefoot on top of a Peruvian hostel bar in pajamas as 200 strangers sing happy birthday to you in 20 some odd languages…? The following is the story of the 24 hours of my 24^th birthday celebration… a story which both begins and ends with a cracker. 

They say things happen for a reason, traveling South America has proven this to me time and time again; my recent bout of sickness in Pisco, Peru is no exception. The week long fury of Pisco belly and 103 fevers lasted just long enough to foil our plans of celebrating my birthday with the rest of South America at the infamous Carnival festival in Bolivia. Instead Aer and I reverted back to our original plan, boarding a bus to Cuzco, home of Macchu Picchu, a mountain we have dreamed about conquering since day one of our journey. Still feeling the waves of sickness we got on the bus armed with sleeves of saltine crackers, and eighteen hours later arrived in Cuzco.

Exhausted and weak (no I had not eaten anything other than saltines in six days) we crawled to the nearest hostel, (Loki Hostel, a lonely planet rec.) threw our book bags on the cold wooden floor of a 15 person dorm room and without thoughts of hygiene or vanity we parked ourselves on one of the crimson benches of the hostel’s apparently very popular bar. Yes it was my birthday eve, yes I looked and smelled like a foot, but somehow within five minutes we had made ten new friends and deemed it appropriate to at least celebrate the eve of my birth with a bottle of cab sauv.

Low and behold, that bottle turned into few beers, which turned into a few shots of tequila and then Loki Bar karaoke night was upon us. It didn’t take much for Aer and I to grab the microphone and regale Peru with our very own  rendition of Madonna’s "Like a Prayer", and as I took to my knees in a literal interpretation of the pop queen’s lyrics, Aer slyly let the bartender know that I would in fact be turning 24 in ten minutes time.

Naturally, ten minutes later I was summoned to the bar…rather I was summoned ON the bar where as the clock struck midnight the 200 some-od backpackers counted down and serenaded me with a heinous version of Happy Birthday that can only be created when 200 people from all over the world speaking 20 different languages attempt to sing one song in unison. It was beautiful….I, however, WAS NOT. 

I mentioned before that I had crawled off an 18 hour bus ride and made straight for the bar. So this means that at this moment I am standing on top of a bar in the middle of Peru, I have not showered in two days so my hair is pulled back in the greasiest of buns, but I also happen to be donning black spandex with gray legwarmers, a tattered black travel dress that has not been washed in maybe 6 weeks who’s pockets are still bursting with bus tickets, tissues, and hand sanitizer… all of this under an oversized Loci hostel T-shirt that had been gifted to me by the bartender as I mounted said bar top.

Aer, I might add, was looking equally radiant in a pair of 3-sizes-too-big-for-her brown cargo pants from the used clothes bin of PSF which are being held up by a shoelace, and a gray tank top that, like my dress, had not been washed in about six weeks.  We are, if nothing else, the definition of disasters, but that my friends is the beauty of travel… everyone is a dirty disaster at all times, and it is almost unacceptable to be seen in any other state.

From here the tabletop dancing ensues for another hour or so until at around 2 the entire hostel takes to the streets of Cuzco to begin an epic dance party at another bar called Momma Africa. My chosen dancer partner, a fabulously entertaining British chap named Ben, and I refuse to do anything but the most retarded mockeries of dance moves ranging from the shopping cart, to the running man and some type of British car washing choreography that I still can’t quite rap my head around. At sunrise we all stumble back to Loki, where Momma Aer stuffs me full of saltines and water and tucks me in like the fabulous mom that she is.

I woke up the next morning to a lovely birthday serenade from four of my new favorite British boys, who as they stood over my bed proclaimed, “Where we come from you don’t start your birthday day without a song”. I made my out into the hostel courtyard amazed to find that EVERYONE still remembered my name AND the fact that it was my birthday. Aer was waiting for me with breakfast, coffee and a beautiful white Peruvian sweater that she had somehow bought in the last 12 hours (saucy little minx that Aer is).  

We spent the day frolicking around the city of Cuzco, planning our upcoming Inca Trail Trek and ultimately spending two hours with nothing but our journals, a banana split and  REAL coffee in a terrace café on Plaza de Armas. We retunred  to the hostel to find our army of new friends waiting to repeat the entire evening all over again. And repeat we did…from tequila, bar top sing-along’s and Momma Africa dance offs to the inevitable saltine water tuck in..It was perhaps the most epic 24 hour birthday celebration I could have wished for. 

But the purest and most beautiful part of it all is that not an ounce of it was planned. From the second I crawled off the bus to the second I crawled into my hostel bed, every event unfolded naturally of its own accord powered only by the spirits and energies of my fellow travelers and of course by THE fellow traveler, my one and only Aer.  Serendipitous as the day was I owe so much of it to that saucy Bech for it was she who covertly alerted the bartender (and everyone else in a 2 mile radius) that my birthday was approaching and it was she who begrudgingly agreed to belt out Madonna with me. It was Aer who woke up early to procure the perfect birthday gift, and it is only Aer who truly appreciates what an afternoon of terrace café writing and coffee can do for the weary traveling soul. 

So, goodbye 23, hello 24, Thank you Loki Hostel for providing the flawless impromptu venue, Thank you 6 dollar bottle of red for kicking the night off right, Thank you dirty travelers for embracing the hot mess that was I, Thank you Peru, you fabulous country of AWESOME you, and above all, Thank you Aer, my beacon, my bech, my one and only TC for reminding me that all we can do is go with the flow and trust that the universe will take care of us, providing infinite friends, bar tops…and saltines.