I’m not usually a tour-bus type of traveler. All of the on-the bus-off the bus-30 minutes here for shopping-welcome to this jewelry store my uncle owns-here is another market for shopping-eat at this really expensive restaurant. Not my thing. However, sometimes it’s necessary in order to see what you want to see in a timely fashion, especially when traveling alone. I took a tour like this to see the Sacred Valley when I was in Cusco. When life gives me shopping opportunities I don’t desire, I try to meet the locals.
During the Sacred Valley tour, we stopped in a market in a town called Ollantomtambo, which is where the train station to go to Machu Picchu is, if that sounds familiar to any reader. When told to be back on the bus in 30 minutes, I decided this was good time to try chicha, the Peruvian traditional corn beer. I had heard that a broom with a plastic bag over it mounted outside of a door meant this was a Chicheria (place where they make chicha). So, as my bus mates tried to decipher if the sweaters they wanted to buy were real alpaca or not, I wandered the cobblestone side streets outside of the market in search of a chicheria. This adventure definitely reeked with an air of Harry Potter, Diagon Alley, butter beer, and I loved it.
It didn’t take too long to find my broom, and I peeked my head inside the concrete doorway to find two toothless men sitting on a bench in front of a multicolored mound of corn, and drinking yellow liquid out of oversized mason jars. Jackpot! “Este es una chicheria?” (This is a Chicheria?) I said in my sweetest- childish Spanish voice. The men on the bench looked at me, then at each other, then at me again with confused expressions. I tried again “Quiero probar chicha” (I want to try chicha). Though my childish Spanish sounds a bit rude and demanding, they were forgiving. They brightened and one of the men shouted a gummy “senora, senora” at a concrete room to the side.
A little old lady in a long gray skirt and white apron wobbled to the door and beckoned me in. She ladeled the foamy yellow liquid out of a huge black kettle, and charged me 50 centimos in soles, which is something like 20 cents USD. I gave her one sol, and when she reached in her apron to find me change, I said she could keep the rest for herself. Her eyes widened, and for a second I thought maybe she wanted more money, because this is about $2 USD, but her smile told me she was really happy to have this, and it also told me tourists do not frequent her “bar.”
The men outside had risen from the bench to greet their new drinking buddy. They told me their names were Louis and Alfredo, and we exchanged some normal first meeting in a pub type questions. They asked me where I was from, how old I was, do I like Peru. I like to give these questions back to foreigners to see what they say. I asked them where they thought I was from, and they said Scandinavia, which was a first for me (I’m not blonde). Louis and Alfredo were in their 40s, and have lived in Ollontomtambo their whole lives. They hadn’t met many Americans so they don’t know if they like them. I knew I was going to do my best to give a good impression for my whole country.
The men were eager to give me a tour of the chicha brewery. I picked up several heads of corn from the mound which looked like a patchwork quilt of purple, orange, red, and yellow and they told me that in Peru there are two types of chicha the yellow kind we were drinking, and the chicha morado-which stains your lips a purple-reddish color. Next to the pile of corn was a wheel barrel with the kernels of corn inside and drying out. And then there was a basket with some liquid and corn kernels inside which had sprouted plant-like growths. The men told me this is where the chicha germinates. It takes about a month to ferment, and they sell the chicha in the market and around the town of Ollontomtambo.
The chicha was room temperature and tasted like frothy, wet, dirty corn. The taste and the alcohol content were both mild and for these reasons I was able to drink almost all of a huge cup before shopping time was up, and I had to make a dash back to the bus. I explained that I had to meet my friends, and Louis happily received the rest of my chicha into his mug. I hope Louis and Alfredo also received as friendly a memory of Americans as I did of those in Ollontomtambo.
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