An Unwanted Adventure

This past Sunday the older youth (16-20) of Los Laureles were invited to distant Olanchito to participate in a 4 team tournament with the winner receiving $100. We were given a little over a week's notice via a youth from Laureles that used to live in Olanchito; and thus it fell to me to organize the event. We decided to rent a bus and open the event to anyone that wanted to come so long as they were willing to pay $5 towards the cost of the rental. We were told that the tournament would begin at 9 am and so we decided to have everyone ready and waiting at the entrance to the community at 5:30 am and for the bus to pass by a little before 6:00. Much to my surprise 35 people and more than enough players showed up, we had uniforms loaned to us, extra balls just in case...but no bus - it never showed. Thus we had to flag down a passing bus on it's normal route from La Ceiba to Olanchito and ask that they be willing to squeeze 35 extra people onto their bus in addition to their regular passengers...for the right price they were willing. After nearly 2 hours on a rickety school bus from Jackson County Florida, driven by a portly, foul-mouthed man who felt it incumbent to stop for and squeeze on every yayhoo and bumpkin standing alongside the road, we arrived....did I mention it was raining? Yeah, that made things much more pleasant. So, we arrived in Olanchito a little after 9 am (the tournament was supposed to start at 9), we pulled into the terminal and the bus driver turned to us and said "Where to now?" We turned to our native of Olanchito and he threw up his hands and acted as though this were the first time he'd ever laid eyes on this town. After a few phone calls we got the name of the field figured out and off we went. I assumed we'd be playing in the center of lovely, colonial Olanchito; a quick 5 minute jaunt from the terminal...
Instead we played here, just beyond this field of beans and that first line of trees, Olanchito is off in the distance and to the left of that mountain. We were in the middle of nowhere, we had to trespass through someone's farm just to reach the field and when we got there....nothing. There was noone to be found. We almost slayed our supposed native of Olanchito. He got wise though and ran off to find the other 3 teams while the rest of us sat down under the trees. I mentioned already that it was raining right?...

Finally around 11 the other 3 teams began to show up and just about at noon on the dot the first of the 3 games commenced...we won handily. The second was played by the other 2 teams and the final game was between us and the winner of the second. We should have won the final...really we should have but the older players felt it important to give the younger players a chance on the field as well and while they played well and did their best they just couldn't come up with a goal and we ended up tying the game 0-0. Which meant that it came down to penalty shots...and in that we lost. Which isn't the worst way to lose I suppose, we came in second place and won $40...which went towards paying for that bus from hell. After traisping back through the bean field we grabbed the same bus that had brought us and arrived without incident in Laureles at around 7:00 pm. I was tired.

colocho there on the left is the supposed former resident of olanchito and our person that organized this mess

juan winding up

and letting lose

he's an incredible player...his secret?

a cigarette before each half.

micho with a shot on goal

pulga all akimbo

one of our up and coming youth

acrobatics

breakaway

pulga again

kind of intentional there kid

pulga again...with no ball to be seen

lauro the hunchback visited us as well

bani's one heck of a goalie but he just couldn't fend off the penalty kicks and we lost...it was a perfect end to an awful day