Beached Jerry

Beached Jerry
Originally uploaded by Joey Cone.

From Huaraz in the high Andeas I headed for the coast to make my way up to Guayaquil. An overnight bus put me in Trujillo at around 5:45 in the morning, and I found my way to the main plaza; weekend party animals staggered toward home, a flaming tranny tried to convince me to go "rest" at his house ("baby, you look so tired, I won´t rob you...you can use my shower, take a nap, walk around my place naked"...no, not that last part, but that´s what his eyes said at the height of their creepiness), and a scattering of young guys in what looked like matador uniforms with puffier, even more flamboyant sleeves and shoulder pads began to gather around the central fountain. It was all quite surreal. Turns out they were musicians in what must have been the frustrated Peruvian version of mariachi.
Trujillo was dirty. As it got light I looked for a bus station to see about a ticket out. Someone said I should go to Huanchaco because of the nice beaches, so when a busted up, ancient VW bus (Kombi, typcical public transport) came by with a kid yelling "Huanchaco, Huanchaco!!" I got right on. Huanchaco is about .75 hour outside trujillo.
En route to Huanchaco, the thought hit me that it was Sunday, and this little town must have a set of hard working mormon Elders and a small chapel. As I got of the bus in a totally randomly chosen spot, I spotted a sharp looking guy pulling along a fat little boy, both in clean white shirts and ties. Mormons. Or J.W.´s who like to copy us in most areas besides sound doctrine. I suspected, and followed; and my suspicions were confirmed when they were joined by a few ladies in Sunday dress carrying indicative green hynmals. I struck up conversation and ended up going to church with them. It was a nostalgic 3 hours of tone-deaf acapela singing, apostate doctrine being thrown around in the small home turned meeting house. Awesome. Of course, they invited me over to their house for lunch afterward and of course I accepted.
The Familia Juarez. An awesome family of 7 kids, the youngest of which is the chubby 4 year old in the picture.

Converts of only 4 years, they still spoke nostalgically of "their missionaries" and Jorge the 16 year old choir director asked all sorts of questions about Utah and Temple Square. Jerry, the funniest little fat kid I´ll ever meet. (He wasn´t funny just because he was fat, he would have been quite a clown otherwise, but it sure added to his comedic charm.) "Amigo, draw me a picture of Tarzan! Amigo, did you abandon your family?" I have an awesome video of him singing Put your Shoulder to the Wheel, but I can´t seem to get CastPost to work...Spencer, a little help.
Anyways, they treated me like a guest that had been invited and expected rather than someone who had randomly wandered in off the street with a backpack and a sunburn. I ended up staying a couple of days in Huanchaco with the Juarezs. Good people. But, as the saying goes in Spanish, "el muerto a los 3 dias apesta", so I headed north toward Guayaquil.