Colombia Day 1

After an overnight flight to Colombia we had a full day of touring and performing.

We arrived at the Salt Lake airport around 9 and boarded at 10:30. All the workers were wearing Halloween costumes, which was pretty cool. On the plane, my friend, Seth, swapped seats with someone so he could sit next to me. We talked for a little bit, and then slept.

Once I arrived in Ft. Lauderdale we met up with Ernesto, the person who organized the trip, and Rowan, a jumper from Canada. We boarded the flight at 3am and I slept until we landed in Colombia at 8:30am.

Once we were stamped into Colombia we met up with Ana Maria, who would be showing us around today. We drove about an hour to our hotel. There we dropped off our stuff and quickly changed before going to explore the city.

Ana took us to see a gym that might be used for a future Pan American competition. She also knew a security guard that worked at the Futbol Stadium. We got to go inside and see the locker room and stand on the field. It was interesting to see all the preparations for the championship game that night.

We then went for lunch of a pasta soup, chicken, rice, an arepa, and a salad. I was starving as I didn't really eat breakfast, and the food tasted delicious. It was warm and sunny all day and then as soon as we went inside for lunch it started to rain.

After lunch it had cleared up so we headed back to our hotel. We changed into jump rope clothes and went to a local square to perform with one of the Colombian teams, Meda Jumpers.

It was very different than the shows I am used to doing. There wasn't anything written out, people would just go out and jump when they wanted to for as long as they wanted to. It also lasted about an hour and a half which is double the performance time I am used to.

There was lots of drunk and homeless people that came up and talked to us, even though I could not understand their Spanish very well. They also would go out and dance in the middle of the square when we were switching between routines. It was not something I was used to encountering, but everyone I met was extremely nice.

We then went for ice cream and walked around a park before heading to our next performance spot. Ernesto and other coaches from Colombia were putting on a press conference/information session for local PE coaches. We did two quick five minute performances.

I also got to see Joaquin, who was a jumper from Colombia that I met at Worlds this summer in Florida. He was the only jumper from his country, so our team adopted him. It was so great to see him again.

We talked with the other people from his team for a while, with our very limited Spanish, and their very limited English. Luckily, Joaquin is fluent in both so he could translate when needed.

After we headed to dinner at Frisbys which is the Colombian version of KFC. Then we went back to shower and go to bed.