January 19, 2025 – Salento, Colombia

Today, flew west from Bogota to Pereira and then went by small bus to Salento in the mountains. But, before leaving Bogota stopped at a market and sampled some of the 400 different fruits of Colombia. All were delicious and my scurvy is cured.

Salento is in the heart of the coffee producing area of Colombia. So, tomorrow will be Colombian Coffee 101.

There’s a kinda weird game here in Colombia called tejos. It involves tossing a steel disk at a circle in a sloped sand pit. There are triangles defining the circle and each triangle has a little gunpowder on the back.

The object is to toss your disk into the center of the circle. If your disk causes an explosion, which is like a firecracker going off, you get nine points. There are more rules for points but whichever team gets to 21 points wins.

Oh, and you drink beer while playing, sometimes even if it’s your turn to throw. Guess beer and gunpowder just go together naturally.

Here our guide scored nine points resulting in her team reaching 21 for the win. The team I was on lost but hey, I got a good video.

Cheers and good luck setting up your tejos court.