Universitario vs. Alianza

So I was home for a little while, which most of you know. I went back to go to my buddy Nathan´s wedding but then I ended up staying to see my brother Nathan and go on a roadtrip down to North Carolina in a short bus. I´m in Lima now and its proving harder to leave than I thought it would be. I got down to the beach a few days to visit some friends I have there but I´m back in the big city now. Lima´s a very cool place. I had the opportunity to go to a classic football (soccer) game here in Lima the other day. Classic meaning two teams from the Peru league. Universitario and Alianza are both teams from the city so it´s a pretty heated rivalry. I know this is a long entry but it was a crazy enough day that I think the whole thing should be told. The game didn´t start till 3:30 but fans from each team started crowding together on opposite sides of the stadiom at about 1:00. Police came in and forced us to start walking towards the stadium, which was about a mile away. The whole way the streets were lined with police in full riot gear and down every cross street there was a barricade to ensure that the 2 groups of fans could never come together. These peole were so amped up that if that ever actually happened there would have been a full blown riot. There were about 15 thousand Universitario fans running with us towards the stadium, they were chanting and singing the whole time. At times you were fighting just to stand up. The crowd got so dense that in order to prevent anyone from getting trampled the police let off 2 pepper bombs. Nacho and I (a buddy of mine who was helping me navigate the crowds) were on the outer edge of them and our eyes were tearing so bad it made it hard to see, our noses and mouths stung like hell and even after that went away all you exposed skin kept burning for another 15 minutes. At one point we were on the edge of the crowd in an area the police didn´t want us to be so one told us to move. I acknowledged him and starting moving, but apparently it wasn´t fast enough because he said it again and hit me on the wrist with his baton. It didn´t hurt all that bad, I think he just hit me hard enough to let me know that he would have no problem really smacking me the next time if I didn´t start moving faster. That particular cop was the only one I saw that appeared as if he really like his job. Others always looked a little afraid but the few other times I saw this guy it was always in some kind of confrontation and he always had a smug look of enjoyment on his face. When we finally got to the stadium we hurried and got in line. The line up against the wall was the worst, there was something to push against so the line got four or five people wide and everyone was fighting for space. Luckily we were in the next one over, it was a lot calmer plus we got to watch all the crazyness 15 ft to our left. Right before it was our time to move we were thronged by people trying to cut into line. People were pushing for space so hard that if you were in the middle you would just get dragged around with the crowd. When a cop came by on horseback everyone would fight to be in the middle because every once in a while they would smack whoever was closest with a switch. I saw a few get lashed in the line up against the wall and it looked like it would hurt like hell. We finally got in, we were patted down as well as randomly selected for a breathalyzer. It was a good game but the crowd was more entertaining, they were singing and jumping and shaking the whole stadium. Every once in a while someone would let off a huge firework, you´d look up and see the smoke and then everyone flooding back into the space they had cleared right before lighting it. We were on Universitario's side (Nacho is a die hard fan) but the oly fight we saw happened on the other. It was hard to see exactly what happened but it must have been pretty bad because the "SUAT" police came in (I saw it spelled that way on one of their vehicles outside of the stadium) and broke it up and then held that area clear for the rest of the game. Like I said, I was a good game, it ended up a 1-1 tie. If it wasn´t for #4 on Universitario's defense it would have been a lot worse. The first few minutes outside was a little hectic as well. The crowd was throwing rocks and glass bottles at people watching from their rooftops. One guy, who almost got hit, threw a half a brick back down and almost hit a kid in the head a few feet to my right. Right at the last minute the kid looked up and was able to deflect it with his hand, it probably hurt him a bit it could have been much worse. As we got a few more blocks away the crowd started dispersing and calming down. Mob mentality is a crazy thing. We went and washed up an Nacho´s parents place and they gave us dinner and we later bussed it back to the hostel. It was one of those days that you don´t think about while you´re there because of all the commotion but when you look back you realize it was a hell of a lot of fun. As to what I´m doing from here, my best bet is to go work at a biological station on the Amazon. Its called Project Piabas, an old friend of the family named Labbish runs it. He says that I'm more than welcome to came work and stay with himand his family. Actually his only words of caution were to be careful because his hot peppers burn at both ends.