¡Saprissa ganó!

I got sick for the first time. Nothing big, but just enough to make me think I may have caught some Caribbean-tired-and-more-tired sickness. Saturday night, I went to a real life, legitimate, once in a lifetime opportunity, Central American fútbol game. One word. Epic. Okay… maybe two words. Epic and rowdy. Let me explain. Prior to the game, I was patted down by a member of the fuerza publica (the police) for anything made of a hard substance; loose change, cell phones, cameras, pencils, rocks, whatever…. apparently they’ve had trouble in the past because overimpassioned fans have thrown objects at opposing teams’ players and have drawn blood on separate occasions, especially with the loose change. So basically, all you can take inside the stadium is your ticket (oh yeah, one of our classmates got his front pocket picked). So of course, we bought the cheapest tickets possible, thus our reward was standing in the most incredibly enthusiastic, marijuana smoking, anthem singing, rowdy section. I couldn´t have hoped for more. Throughout the course of the game, I heard and involuntarily memorized just about every Spanish swear word as well as a some Saprissa fight songs that filled the night with variety and unrelenting passion. Ten seconds after one song would subside, a new one would commence, more than often accompanied with drum blasts and bleacher bounding. Meanwhile, about every 30 seconds, our entire section would flip off the opposing teams´ players and fan section clear across the stadium. At one point in the game, dozens of Saprissa fans shot off about 6 rounds of roman candles and an allotment of different fireworks. Just because. I don’t know how they managed to smuggle them through police patdown, but they did. A lot of them did. We also threw hundreds of paper rolls, which turn into streamers once thrown into the air, onto the opposing team´s goal before the game started. Yeah... epic. En resumen (in summary), we thoroughly experienced 2 hours of genuine Costa Rican culture, donning Saprissa jerseys we bought for 6 bucks right before the game. Immediately after, only our rowdy section was required to wait for 45 minutes inside the stadium until all the opposing teams’ fans exited. Knife and rage fights break out routinely after games such as this, so apparently this was a new precautionary tactic. Nice. Besides inhaling marijuana smoke all game while being ill in the pouring rain, it was definitely “vale la pena”. Definitely worth the pain.


Love yáll.