During our bike tours, we usually stop for a tejo match. Today, this young couple had brought their dog, a your and lively creature. The dog chased the tejo, which is a heavy iron disk, but naturally could not grab it. Each time a mecha exploded, the dog ran outside - but then soon returned.
Among things Colombian, tejo ranks right up there with chicha, beauty pageants, vallenato music and bandeja paisa.
You could call it Colombia's version of tossing horseshoes or bocce balls - but with a bang. In tejo, you throw an iron disk weighing up to several kilograms at a clay pit area. But the real excitement comes when slams onto one of the gunpowder-filled paper envelopes on the target area, which explodes with a satisfying bang!
In 2000, Colombia's Congress declared tejo to be the country's national sport. (Perhaps a wise move, since Colombia does so poorly at international futbol.)
And my hand is almost big enough to palm a basketball!
The goal: hit one of these little gunpowder-filled envelopes!
This novice player got one of the envelopes, and plans a brilliant future in tejo.
While popular in Colombia, tejo's not likely to spread to other, more lawsuit-minded nations. Just imagine the ambulance-chasing lawyers salivating over the prospects of drunks tossing heavy blocks of metal.
Tejo playing is financed and lubricated by lots of cerveza.
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