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PUEBLO DE LINDAY, PERÙ—After a 33 year long identity crisis the search for a place to call home came to a close for Max Lindez. The small and obscure but now famous Pueblo de Linday welcomed its newly honored guest on October 6th of 2004. This marks the first time that anyone bearing the name Lindez has visited Pueblo de Linday which lies 63 kilometers east of Peru’s capital city of Lima. The name Linday comes from the Spanish word lindero meaning edge but more specifically in this case to the terrace farmers of the Andean mountains. Ironically enough Max’s family has long been involved in terrace farming in the Midwestern United States of Illinois and Wisconsin where for a quarter century they were on the cutting edge of ginkgo-biloba production. The only way in, out and around of Pueblo de Linday is to hike an hour and a half up the mountains from the Carterra Central or the central highway that cuts through the middle of Peru. There are no motorized vehicles, stores, restaurants, cafes or night time hotspots for tourists to go pick up the local girls. There are also no houses or apartments for rent in the very likely event that one would be enamored enough with Pueblo de Linday and wanted to spend their entire holiday in paradise. If you wanted to settle more permanently you’ll have to get off your lazy ass and build a house on your own out of clay bricks, adobe style, just like everyone else. That’s the beauty of Pueblo de Linday, everyone is equal and no one gets special treatment.
This discovery comes as great news for Max who just earlier this year found out he was 1/15th Irish. He has great plans to celebrate and capitalize on his newly founded Peruvian roots by hanging a Peruvian flag from the rear view mirror of his “Qué” Honda Civic. Upon entering the town during mid-day, it became immediately clear that there was more in common than simply the name. All of the village’s residents seemed to have poor taste in humor, art, music, and cinema and share a love for tasteless bigotry disguised as humor. The residents seemed abrasive and spoke using innuendos and verbal cues only they could understand. Insults and mockery were standard. "There’s something magical about this place," said Max. “I really, really feel like I fit in and that doesn’t happen too often. It never does.”
The local residents, both old and new, took quite a liking to Max Lindez, their newly honored guest. He taught their youth the “pull my finger” trick and the elders shared with him their ancient Andean belching secrets. "At
first it this place was kinda strange, something was wrong. My first
thought was I was right in the middle of the Twilight Zone but it
was more serious than that. It was more like that Star Trek episode
(the original, of course) where they landed on a parallel universe
just like earth but everyone was a Nazi. Yeah, that was weird,"
Max added. |
