27th & 28th September - Football!

The weekend brought two football matches, one pretty small and one pretty large. But first we had to pay a visit to the Clinica Arequipa where we had an appointment with a paediatrician so that Matthew could have a check-up. Afterwards I walked from the Clinic, located on Puente Grau about 3km from the centre of Arequipa, to the Plaza de Armas so that I could have a look around and take some photos. There are a number of colourful colonial buildings in the La Gruta district, west of the Rio Chili, of the central district of Arequipa area I walked through including the Monasterio de la Recoleta church and there were also very nice views up the Rio Chili towards the Chachani volcano.

At 3pm in the afternoon the first football game of the weekend took place and I attended it with Luz´s father. The game in question was between IDUNSA and Atlético Huracán in the Copa Peru 2008. The Copa Peru is a competition for Peruvian clubs who are outside the top two divisions. The country is split into 8 different geographic regions each containing either 2 or 3

departments. Each of these departments also hold internal competitions various levels (district and provincial) and the top two overall in these departmental competitions go through to the regional competition with the top two of the other departments in that region. Then the top two in each region go through to the national knockout stage. The overall winner of the Copa Peru is promoted into the Peruvian Premier Division whereas the runner-up goes into the Second Division.

Teams from the department of Arequipa compete in Region 7 along with the qualified teams from the departments of Tacna and Moquegua. The six teams play in two groups of 3 with the group winners playing off for the regional championship. IDUNSA, from the city of Arequipa, were the winners of the Arequipa Department (Pierola from Camaná were runners-up and will also take part in the Regional competition) whilst Atlético Huracán, from the city of Moquegua, were the runners-up in the department of Moquegua.

The game was played at the very large UNSA (Universidad Nacional San Augustín) stadium, located in the Miraflores district underneath El Misti volcano, which has a capacity of around 50000 spectators and played host to a number of games in the Copa America 2004 competition which was held in Peru. Today, however, the stadium held only around 500 people and so looked very empty. And the game, played on a poor pitch, was also of pretty low quality with many mistakes and poor passes. IDUNSA did have a couple of good players in numbers 23 and 24, both wingers, who looked a cut above most of the other players and created quite a few chances. IDUNSA managed to win 4-0 in the end but should really have won by a far greater margin as they were a lot better than Atlético Huracán. They look a very good bet to win the overall regional competition and progress through to the national stage.

The next day, at 11:30 a much more important game took place and I also attended with Luz´s father. This game was between FBC Melgar v Universitario de Deportes in the Torneo Clausura (Closing Tournament) of the Primera División Peruana. FBC Melgar have long been the best team in Arequipa and won the overall Peruvian championship in 1981, the first time a team outside of Lima had done so. Universitario de Deportes, from Lima, are considered to be one of the "Big Three" of Peruvian football along with Alianza Lima and Sporting Cristal and have won the Peruvian title a record 24 times.

This game was played at FBC Melgar´s home stadium, the 20000 capacity Estadio Mariano Melgar (named after the famous poet from Arequipa) which although quite small at least has a good view of three huge volcanoes (2), something which can´t be said for 99% of football grounds. Although it attracted only around 10000 spectators they created a very good atmosphere with plenty of singing, huge colourful flags, dancing and fireworks. Universitario are a very popular team throughout Peru, not just in Lima, and they had also brought a large number of fans including many from Arequipa.

It was a decent game, probably of high English Championship standard, and overall Universitario were the better team and deservedly won 2-1 with two goals by their Peruvian international striker Roberto Jimenez, both following defensive mistakes by Melgar.
Melgar´s goal came in the last minute from their long-haired Argentinian-born striker Sergio Ibarra.

In the evening, at around 7pm, we left for the Terminal Terrestre bus station in order to catch our bus to Cuzco. This time we had booked tickets through the Cruz del Sur bus company whose luxury buses included seats which could be folded right down to make beds. I always find it very difficult to sleep on buses or planes and hopefully this would help. There was also waitress service, a meal, TV and the buses were equipped with various safety measures so all-in-all it should be a comfortable trip.

The bus left at around 8:30pm and made its way up through Yura and the Cordillera Volcánica, passing the Laguna Lagunillas until it reached the town of Juliaca, just west of Lake Titicaca, at around 1am the following morning. The road was very rough for much of the way and also rises to almost 5000m at its highest point. It also became very cold and we were thankful for the blankets which the bus company had provided us with. After a short stop in Juliaca to pick up a few more passengers the bus left and continued its journey through the night to Cuzco.

Oh, and I didn´t really manage to sleep properly on this bus either.