FUTBOL!

On Sunday afternoon Alejandro and Raymundo had a soccer game with the league in town. The best way to get there is by bike (tons of bike traffic around here), but we only had three bikes (and another one of the kids was coming to watch, so there were four of us). They asked me if I wanted to bike or walk. I told them either way was fine with me, that I could bike, but having seen the way they bike carpool, with one person sitting on the top tube and steering while the other person gets the saddle and the pedals, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to be the bikepooler (I’m not sure I could bikepool on a paved road let alone the rutted, rocky dirt backroads we have around here). So we hopped on with Raul and Raymundo sharing and rode over to the baseball/soccer field. With the wind in my hair a short race with Alejandro, I haven’t felt that much like a kid in a long time.

Once there we watched the last couple minutes of a baseball game and then the guys got ready to play. Several men dragged the goals to their places at each end of the field and the whistle blew to get the game started.

We climbed up to the roof of the home team dugout and had a clear, although distant view (we were at the end of the field, not the side). The team did great; we had a lot of opportunities to cheer as we won 5 to 1.

Raymundo (4) and Alejandro (11) walk back to the game after halftime.

After the game we rode to the beach, then we rode on the beach. Close to the lakeshore, the sand is hard enough cars and bikes have no problems, getting off the beach is a different story. With a bike, of course, it’s easy enough to push, but we saw one car where the people standing around descended upon it to give advice after it got stuck.

Raul pedals while Raymudo steers.

After the beach was a few moments at the central park in town (after a quick stop for Alejandro to fix my bike when the chain came off due to overenthusiastic gear changing). There, we picked up water and sat on a bench as dusk quickly turned to dark. Then we rode home to dinner. The only thing that was missing was mom standing outside yelling for us to come in.

Alejandro rides next to me on the beach with a cloud covered volcano behind him.