6th Nov - Taganga Day 1

Shattered but it's hard enough to sleep in here. So bloody hot and mossies everywhere. I'd originally intended heading off on my Lost City tour today but it took so f-ing long to get here, I'll just book for tomorrow. Had heard that Magic Tours were the crowd to go with so booked with them - leave v early tomorrow morning. I know absolutely nothing about the tour, just that it's supposed to be a great thing to do, I'm sure it'll be grand!

Watched Man United v Wolves, then Ireland v South Africa in the rugby in the morning - brilliant hearing Amhran na bhFiann in a random hostel in Colombia!




Had a poor lunch and then went for a stroll down to the beach. Loads of local urchins down on the beach having savage craic. They'd look for a massive wave coming in like a wall and all sprint and jump into it. Simple enough game - savage craic. Here's a video.



Then they were all doing gymnastics on the beach and back into the water.



There was one lad, about 12 and 4ft nothing. Ran into the water with the rest of them. Came back out with the biggest lump on his face that I'd say I've ever seen. Bit of blood and his left eye closed, poor lad was centre of attention for a while. Obviously loads of rocks in the water and at times lads get smacked in the face.

Went back towards the hostel eventually and passed the local soccer pitch. It was Saturday so there were a few games on. Excellent! I stayed for about an hour, very like a Gaelic Football match at home, everyone screaming unfair abuse at the ref, very much a community atmosphere. Pitch was shocking though, no grass at all and built on a hill, though the surroundings with green hills on 3 sides and the sea on the last were superb.

Utterly bizarrely, on this dirt pitch between 2 local Colombian teams, the goalkeeper for one of the sides was wearing an Ireland soccer jersey - Eircom plastered across his chest! Sadly, just like the lads who wear that jersey for real at the moment, he was puck useless, shur God love us.

Useless, God love him

I'd enough of it after about an hour and was strolling for road when I saw that the opposition manager was also wearing green. It couldn't be... it was you know! He was wearing an FAI/Ireland t-shirt. Surreal.

I tipped on anyway and went back to the hostel for dinner. Had steak in the afternoon so couldn't have it again, went for some Asian dish which was a couple of degrees past exceptional. The man was a genius! So now it was about 9, and I'd to head to bed as i was being picked up at 8.30 and we were going hiking up mountains for the next 5 days and I badly craved sleep. And I hadn't packed yet - very important to get that right as we had to carry everything on our backs for the whole length of the hike.

With that in mind, it would've been madness to join in a drinking card game with some Yanks, English and Canadians. Madness to horse back enough rum to tranquilise a wild boar, madness to decide that a club would be a super idea and utter madness to stumble home to bed on the verge of puking at 3am with the alarm imminent at 8 followed by the crucial drunken packing.

Madness

Madness!