Villa de Leyva

Villa De Leyva

Once again the Colombian people showed us how to be incredible hosts.  During Poultry Days, Cara found out about an opportunity to stay in a ranch house in Villa De Leyva from Cata, a frisbee friend with Texas ATM roots.  Her parents, Jaime and Hilda, joined us for three nights and two days at their second home in the mountains outside of Bogota.  VdL is a quiet colonial city surrounded by mountains and beautiful countryside.  It has one of the largest plazas in South America and all of the buildings downtown are beautiful white stucco.

While in VdL we walked to the plaza at night, ate incredible homemade food, went horse back riding!, and met some new frisbee friends from Tunja.
















Boyaca countryside on our roadtrip to VdL
















Ranch House!  They also had an amazing garden with fruit trees and flowers.
















Surge enjoying a hammock and fresh mountain air.
















The big church in the plaza.




















Simon Bolivar monument at Puente de Boyaca.
















Caballeros!
















Piscina Azul Naturale.  We took a dip after a hill workout.
















Casa de Terracotta.  An ongoing DIY project of one of the locals.

Mesosaurus fossil, aquatic dinosaur.  Colombia was covered by a shallow sea millions of years ago.
















Tunja frisbee friends and our guard dog.

Mil gracias to Cata's family, Jaime, Hilda, and Camila.  Thank you for making us feel so welcome!

El Caribe- Caribbean Coast

Santa Veronica and Cartegena

 Mike and I enjoyed the day touring Cali with our moms on the day after the finals, but we were both anxious to return to our teammates, lest fomo (fear of missing out) set in with its full and terrible weight. We caught an early flight out of Cali to meet up with the team in Cartegena, on the northern coast of Colombia.

Part of our pre-Colombia preparations included reviewing "Romancing the Stone", an early 90s Michael Douglas film set in Colombia and Cartegena. Not quite the classic we both remembered, and Cartegena was portreyed as a crime and crocodile ridden trash heap. We had also been warned by Colombian friends that Cartegena, while a picturesque walled colonial city on the water, was also tainted by the mass tourism it received. So I was keen to skip it until we found out that Opi´s girlfriend (and my 2009 teammate) Alicia White had a landlord in D.C. who owned a palatial house on the Carribean coast near Cartegena, in a small town called Santa Veronica.

We met the team at their hostel, walked down the quaint colonial streets, grabbed some incredible pastries and fresh juice (jugo naturale), and made plans to fill the 10 hours before we arranged to meet her contact back at the hostel. We decided on a nearby "volcano mud bath" called Volcan de Tortuma. After a few hours of confusing transportation navigation and negotiations, thankfully led by Spanish-speaking Cree, we arrived.. 




 Volcan de Tortuma











The not-so-aptly named volcano turned out to more closely resemble a large 5th grade science project than a volcano.

Beau, Harrison (Cree´s brother), Georgia, Nicky, Geoge, Mac, Ashlin, and Mike in the mud pit.








Though cautious at first of exactly what were getting into, both figuratively and literally, we eventually shed our inhibitions (and for some, clothes), and jumped in. It was truly the oddest physical feeling I have ever experienced. Floating with a sensation of being dragged down. Heavy, but light. Smooth, but gritty. We stayed there suspended in the mud, feeling wonderfully strange, until a gaggle of local high school students arrived to crowd us out. After you get out and climb down the ant hill, you are led to the nearby lake (Tortuma) and attended to by a group of local women who force you to remove all of your clothes and get down to business aggressively washing you clean of all the mud. They then charge you a reasonable service fee for allowing them to physically assault you.

Georgia, Surge, and Mike playing Yaniv and drinking Poker while waiting to figure out how exactly we were going to get back to Cartegena.






Cree once again saved the day by organizing a series of transportation miracles involving motor bikes, a bus, and taxis to get us safely back to Cartegena just in time to meet with Ramiro and get groceries for our next few days of beach living.





Silly frisbee games to wile away the Colombian time until the bus arrived (always late).








While waiting for the autobus we busied ourselves with more beer and Yaniv, played silly games on the side of the road, and crashed a male only birthday party rave in the nearby village. We finally made it back to Cartegena to make an epic three-cart shopping trip to Exito and meet Ramiro before taking a sweaty van ride to his house in Santa Veronica.

This house...was...incredible.





A gazebo with 4 hammocks sat in the back yard, which was filled with coconut trees. If Ryan and Surge weren´t around, it was a good bet they were in a hammock.





 
The back yard opened up to the Caribbean Sea.





Something like 15 pet tortoises roamed the yard.

Arrepa con juevo. Arrepa is a super common meal accompaniment made of corn meal, kind of like a super thick tortilla made with corn meal. Though found all over Colombia, the Carribe coast claims ownership. This one has a fried egg inside.




I can´t begin to name all of the incredible food we ate, prepared by a woman they hired to cook. Like many other countries, it is the norm for middle class families in Colombia to have someone who cooks and cleans. Every family we have stayed with has had someone helping out.







Teachers unite! 








Ramiro and Narda (friend of Ramiro) are primary teachers in D.C. and Nicky, Surge, and Mac have also all given their souls to the future of America.

Team picture on the beach at sunset. Plus incredible photo bomb by the older man who is friends of Ramiro´s partner and was also staying at the mansion with his wife.

Mortal combat fun with photos!

Our last night all together we decided to have a prom night. Everyone put on their best for dinner. Note Beau´s outfit choice.







Three incredible days soaked in coconut water, rum, and salt water. We swam in the ocean during the days, laid in the hammocks, napped, read, ate amazing food, slept in and stayed up late, collected coconuts, chased copulating tortoises, made a bonfire on the beach, and swam some more.

The morning that Mike and I had to leave we awoke to find the older couple, Ramiro, and Narda eating breakfast. I spent some amount of our time there worrying that our late night antics were bothering them and preventing them from sleep, but as we prepared to leave the older woman told me that she would miss having us around. Expecting a lecture and absolutely stunned, I asked why. Through Narda´s translations and additions, they said that it was invigorating and incredibly special to be around a group of people that were so young, fit, full of life, and who clearly loved each other very much.

Though I was super sad that our whole team adventure was drawing to a close, that observation made parting ways with George, Georgia, Dylan, Opi, Ryan, and Nicky a tiny bit easier to handle. There´s nothing I can say here about the whole experience that won´t sound like a poorly worded cliche about memories and relationships to last a lifetime (all true), so I´ll just leave it at our team motto: los dos.

Cali

There is no better way to reduce your PTD (post tournament depression) than by spending a day sightseeing with your moms! We spent the Wednesday after the finals touring Cali with our moms and Luis the friendly taxi-tour guide.  We went to the zoo, saw an old church, had some great fish for almuerzo, and went to a Colombian cultural fair being held in the city center.
















Luis and our sweet ride for the day, complete with World Games advertisement.

This is why there was a huge cat on our medals.  This statue was created by a famous artist, and is a symbol of Cali.

Me and Mom in front of the church.

Super sweet relief model of Colombia we saw at the cultural fair.  I had no idea there is a huge volcano on the Caribbean coast.

Almuerzo rico!

Poet´s plaza. Actual poetry was being read.


Gracias Mammas for the great day.  We are so happy that you guys were brave enough to get out of your comfort zone and come to Colombia!

The Word Games

36 sports, 101 countries, 3000 athletes...all attempting to increase the visibility, legitimacy, and popularity of their sport by participating in the World Games. Which makes the error on the medals, a simple missing line, both hilariously and painfully ironic. Mike and I are now gold medal champions of the Word Games 2013. Everywhere we have been since Cali, people have congratulated us on our participation in Las Palabras Mundiales. Colombians are not without a sense of humor.

Metallurgy mistake aside, los Juegos Mundiales were absolutely incredible. Cali is a beautifully gritty city surrounded by mountains, and they put on their best show for the games. World Games posters, billboards, flags were draped over the city. Supporters, volunteers, athletes, and the largest single police force I have ever witnessed swelled the city of 2.5 million.

Too much happened in too little time to be able to properly emotionally process everything, so here are some general mental snapshots (photos coming soon):

• the team stayed together in a hostel the first night (positives: the opening ceremony, poolside hammocks, unheard of fruits, a new card game called Yaniv; negatives: Cree and Dylan had stuff taken from them, passport and money)
• safety first: we had a 3 man police detail with us at all times. They were all incredible people, good at their job, and good salsa dancers to boot!
• Salsa dancing the Friday before the tournament, inspiring a new pre-tourney ritual to loosen up my hips. Cali is "the Salsa capital of the world", and salsa music can be heard pretty much 24 hours a day any time you walk outside. One morning I got a 5:00 a.m. wake up call in our hotel by a salsa playing trumpeter down in the streets.
• The twinkling city wide view from our hotel rooftop at nights. We had our team meetings up there every night...definitely a special place.
• Being treated like a professional athlete: the stadium, chiropractors at the tips of your fingers, locker rooms, post game ice baths, press crew, and thousands of legitimate ultimate fans. 
• Hundreds of people singing Happy Birthday to me during the Great Britain game, then going on to win the finals. Best birthday ever.
• All the supportive emails, Facebook messages, Groupmes, and other correspondence from friends and teammates back home and around the world. It was a source of strength and positivity that I could draw on whenever I needed to calm down, focus, or try and gain some perspective in the midst of the craziness.
• Having our moms and my dad there in the stands, and watching my mom give an interview to a Colombian news network.
• The Japan game: I have an incredible respect for, and fear of, Japanese Ultimate. It was how games should be. Both teams fighting tooth and nail, making great plays, adjusting and countering to the others strategy. It felt closer than the final score reflected, and it reminded me why I love this sport.
• Watching Mike play out of his mind. A greatest in the end zone during the Japan game and a tip and layout catch in the end zone on the last day come to mind as my favorite plays.
• Being coached by Matty and Alex, two of the great minds of the game with two very different styles. I value their perspective on the game and am especially grateful for the things I learned regarding how to be a better player within the structure of a good team. 
• Speaking of...the team: we cuddled, danced with, aggressively and purposefully hugged, loved, and played for each other. It was incredibly powerful. I am continually amazed at how close the 20 of us became in such a short period of time together, but the necessity to build a supportive and successful team in 6 weekends bred a team chemistry that burned hot and fast.

The experience was life altering, and the only thing that prevented an immediate and catatonic post-tournament depression was the fact that we would get to delay the inevitable parting of ways for a few more days by traveling together in Colombia. Adventure!