Quinceañera at the Casino

Outside the Casino people are having fun

Isis Hanahy had her quinceañera last night and it was a big blowout. Hundreds of people crammed the Casino and more milled on the fringes, drinking, laughing, and running into old friends. Incoming pangas had been crowded all day, bringing guests from PV and beyond. All over the pueblo city-dressed Mexicans were asking for directions. Upriver, even past the puente (bridge), I ran into straggles of offlanders here for the event.

Sr. Garcia--a man who has what my wife calls, "some serious gravitas"--was behind the scenes inside the casino, his presence guaranteeing mucho pesos had been spent. The day before, I’d happened on a moto idling at his casa. Two lockers of carne were being delivered, announced by a chico, holding up by its horns the severed head of a brahma bull, dripping blood on Garcia’s tiled doorstep. 

Party decorations and fancy clothes inside the Casino

When I dropped by the Casino about 10 pm, the meat had yet to be served but cerveza was going by the case. Dozens of long and florally arranged tables occupied half the building; the remaining space was a dance floor. The quinceañera’s court was at a dais, lit by strands of strobing purple lights. Two wall-size screens cycled slides of Isis’s early life, moving quickly to the main event: moist-lip fashion shots shamelessly showcasing her fifteen-year-old pulchritude. 

Music throbbed throughout the pueblo most of the night, increasing in volume for the final round of dances just before first light. This morning there were still stumbling drunks around the muelle, either mumbling or talking too loud, waiting for hangovers to take hold. It'll be a slow day today in old Yelapa-ville.