La Taverna

Last Friday night after training, me and few other trainees went out for beers at local joint called La Taverna that I found during one of my language exercises. The bartender didn’t help me out for shit on my project but at least I found a good place to get a couple of beers after work.


It was a really good time. We’re splitting up into groups and many in my Water and Sanitation (WatSan) group are also in my language group so I really haven’t gotten to know a bunch of folks. We started off by getting a big bottle of rum and did some shots. We also bought a few beers and split them. We kind of upended the place when we came in. There were a couple two tree tables where the locals were hanging out and here we came charging in like a herd of thirsty PC trainees. The locals put up with our shit and were very accommodating. They moved tables around and interrupted their conversations to make us comfortable. I went and sat with a few men that were already half in the bag and chatted with them for a while.

A PC volunteer named Chris hung out with us and taught us a few things about drinking in Peru (which they apparently do a lot). He told us about ordering a caja of beer which is twelve, liter and a half beers which came to about 45 soles ($15). He also taught us how the Peruvians pass around the bottle. There are only a couple of glasses and there’s an order on who pours, who drinks and how the glasses get passed but I can’t remember exactly how it goes. What a I remember is that everyone drinks out of the same glasses, you shake it out and pass it on down the line. It sounded pretty gross. He said it was especially gross when you get handed this glass after it been around a few times and the guy that passes it to you is some nasty slobbering old drunk Peruvian man. 

He also taught some of the single guys in our group how to pick up Peruvian chicks that are sweet on gringos (pancheras?) with out blowing all your cash. We sat around the table for a little bit getting to know each other in a less formal, non-training setting and had a nice time. As you can see from the picture below, I wasn´t listening very well.