Salon del Cacao y Chocolate

I saw the beige envelope lying in my chair.  As I picked it up, I saw my name printed across the cover, and inside was a cloth-and-paper card that would have cost ten bucks if you were using it for your wedding.  It had my attention.  If someone had gone through the trouble of sending me one of these, it was likely my presence was expected.  Diplomatic functions are usually dry and boring sweat lodges full of free booze and important people I don’t recognize, but this one piqued my curiosity, so I sent the customary RSVP.

The event was called “House of Cocoa and Chocolate 2012.”

After work, still in my gray suit, I stepped onto a coaster-bus, a 28-passenger conveyance.  At least 50 of my new closest friends shared it, and the conductor kept yelling at guys in the back to get closer together, because there was still room.  The driver was a rock, but they usually are.  The bus companies either search for high-level Buddhist monks, or they give them tranquilizers to deal with Peruvian traffic.

We drove by a station - a gallon of 98-octane gasoline was up to s/19.34, which at current exchange rates is $7.39.  In a country where minimum wage works out to about $1.40/hr, that should add some perspective.  The next time I complain about $4 gas, someone please remind me to shut up and be happy that the U.S. has its own refining capacity.

The bus dropped me off a few blocks from the address, just as it turned the corner to head back north.  The event was easy to find, since outside was a line that came out of some movie, where some nobodies were trying to get into some exclusive club, and the big thug at the door won’t let them in, yet some hot girl walks right inside.

Tonight, I was the hottie.  I walked straight to the front and handed the guards my invitation, and he checked my name against a list.  Doors open.  I could get used to this.

The Prado house is probably one of the largest private residences in Lima.  As one point in recent history, it was liberated from the Prado family and used as the Prime Minister’s office.  A few years ago, the more reasonable government returned it, and now it’s used to host snooty-snoot events such as this one.  The main hall has the split staircases straight out of the Munsters, only a lot cleaner and without anything living underneath, and the ballroom was a spot for about 300 people to gather.

In celebration of the history of chocolate, the organizers had hired “living scuptures” in the entryway – live models dressed in period clothing, who depicted the ancient methods of processing the beans.  On either side of the entrance hall stood a man and a woman, dressed in pre-Inca garb and covered with red makeup.  They moved, but very slowly, beckoning the guests inside with their movements.

Oh, the smell!  I took a deep breath through my nose, as the smell of melted chocolate almost stung in my nostrils.  In the center of the entrance stood three huge multi-tiered fountains of chocolate, surrounded by skewers of fruits, marshmallows, cookies, and various other items, all designed to be waterboarded in one of the chocolate fountains.

This decadent buffet was not yet open for business, since first we were herded into the ballroom, where a half dozen honored guests spoke for a few minutes each.  We heard from chocolate association execs, and some guy from France who spoke Spanish with a thick French accent, which was just fascinating to listen to, almost musical.  The U.S. Ambassador to Peru spoke somewhere in the center of the lineup, where she almost casually mentioned how cocoa played an important role as a legal crop in the fight against cocaine production. 

At the end of the remarks, the crowd moved back into the main hall and attacked the fountains of chocolate.  I tried a variety of things – mango dunked in chocolate, marshmallows dunked in chocolate, kiwi dunked in chocolate, strawberries dunked in chocolate…is that really a variety?  Maybe.  A sharply dressed waiter kept bringing around a drink tray full of a chilled Bailey’s and chocolate concoction.  It tasted strong enough that I limited myself to two.  I wasn’t driving, but some of the drinks here will leave one not remembering where he lives.

The press was there in hordes, including some guy from a TV show.  I tried to pay attention and move in the other direction, and at one point when we got cornered, a colleague of mine said to me, “Hurry…look boring…look like you aren’t having fun.”  A press photographer did catch me in an action shot, shoving some chocolate covered shish-kabob into my wide open mouth, but I’m not ashamed.

The danger of press at such an event is getting caught in a candid comment.  I had my sound bite prepared.  “I’ve been all over the world, and Peru has the best chocolate.”  It’s a true statement, even a lot of the German and Swiss stuff comes from beans grown here.

The press doesn’t want to talk about chocolate, they want a blip about U.S. policy toward Syria.  “Does Syria have chocolate?  You guys should ship them some, and then we could have world peace!”

By nine, it was time to make a gracious exit.  The lady who was the living statue in the entrance must have gotten into the chocolate-liqueur, because she had the giggles and was doing the robot dance in slo-mo.  The other guy was still a stone face, even after a hundred photos and a bit of a performance for the live cameras.

I stepped out into a night that was 20 degrees cooler, and in my wool suit that was probably going to need a good dry-cleaning, this was a good transition.  Within minutes, I stepped back onto another crowded bus.

The thing about this sort of adventure – you never know what you might see.  On the bus with me, I saw a nun in a white dress and black sandals.  Doesn’t she know it’s after Labor Day?  Wait, since Labor Day in Peru is in May, she’s okay.  Another dude looked like he jumped straight out of an anime, with heavily gelled sculptured hair and everything.  He was jamming to his iPod, using giant chromed-out Dick Clark headphones and bobbing his head.  Ludicrous.

As I stepped off the bus near my house, I glanced up at a police vehicle, a Toyota truck.  On the tailgate was a “Baby-on-board” sign from the 80s, except it said, “Police-on-board.”

The life of a diplomat may be a lot of things, but it isn’t boring.