Colombia vs. Bolivia Soccer Game

On our 2^nd day here in Bogota, Colombia, we decided to walk around a little bit and see if we could find a good place to eat breakfast. We found a restaurant called Crepes & Waffles which happened to be recommended to us by some friends here the day before. We sat down to eat and half way through breakfast we noticed a group of about 10 men, wearing all black, throwing beanbags in a line to each other. But these were no ordinary beanbags. They were gigantic beanbags for people to sit on, and they also looked like Fifa cup soccer balls! All of us turned and watched as they lined up about 150 beanbags in front of a huge TV screen outside. After breakfast we wandered down to where all the beanbags were and in Spanish Dad asked what was going on. The men replied that at 2:00p.m. they would be playing the Colombia vs. Bolivia men's soccer game on the giant screen. We walked away amazed that so many people were already seated in front of the screen on the beanbags 4 hours ahead of time. After walking around town and exploring the mall we brought Maddie back to the apartment because she had no interest in watching a soccer game, and headed back to were we saw everything happening earlier that day. We were about 3 blocks away from where the game was playing when we heard scream coming from the direction of the game, we immediately new what had happened, Colombia had scored a goal! We knew we were already late but we didn't want to miss anymore. When we got there it was packed, we didn't expect there to be any beanbags left to sit on knowing from earlier that day that people had arrived 4 hours early for this game, but we didn't expect what we found. People were sitting everywhere covering the ground all around the screen. We took a seat at the back and looked at the screen. It was 30 minutes into the game and the score was 2-0. Colombia was winning and it wasn't quite halftime yet. Bolivia didn't end up scoring the rest of the game and neither did Colombia, but there were quite a few times were they came very close to scoring and the crowd erupted in cheers, blowing of very loud horns and clapping. We decided that you didn't want to come to Colombia and cheer for the wrong team, Colombia is very serious about their soccer! When the game was finished everyone packed and went home.

By Elena Faber