On the Road to Find Out

Unfortunately there were no bimbos at the Bimbo Cup, but it did prove to be a great evening. First off, Danubio trounced Nacional (Paraguay) 5-2 in the opening game with some nice goals too! The real reason for the evening was always going to be Peñarol v Nacional though, and this started to show about halfway through the first game when the stadium started to fill with Peñarol and Nacional fans who started to chant at each other. I felt kind of sorry for the players left playing football on the field as nobody seemed to be really interested in what they were doing. The fans were just warming themselves for what was to come, which would be El Clasico. Which, despite, this just being a friendly, would not be just a friendly, there was pride at stake after all. In the end, the game proved not to be too much of a swashbuckling affair and finished goalless. Peñarol should have won it though after a number of one-on-one’s with the goalkeeper which they conspired to miss. This meant the game went to penalties and Nacional inevitably won. I managed to actually get some video footage of the final winning penalty and the celebrations won. It’s somewhat low-key by South American standards but at least shows how many people there were in the stadium and how much both sets of fans wanted to celebrate the final whistle, Nacional for their victory and Peñarol for their team’s efforts, especially considering their team has generally been the worse of the two in the recent past.

When I first decided that I would stay in South America over Christmas I have to admit I was a little concerned that maybe I would miss it. Now that all festivities have passed and we are well into the swing of January there is no doubt that it was the right move and I would recommend everyone from England to book a flight and get the hell of that island next time Santa comes round, and not even just for the week of Christmas, the two weeks before and after too!

The lack of pressures is an absolute delight. No need to worry about co-ordinating those work-related Xmas parties, having to contend with the thousands of presents getting stuffed in your eyeholes via the tv, newspapers, Internet, shop window and whatever other surface happens to be facing in your direction between October and December, but most of all, the ability to get the hell out of the house. The ability to go to the beach, go to a poolside party, have a couple of beers in the park, these are the sort of things we should be doing when we have two weeks off work, not sat inside our houses watching 3-hour long episodes of Coronation Street and finding out the exact point when your body is ready to vomit from eating too many nut truffles. It’s such a waste of free time!

Now we’re two weeks into January and the fact that not one single person I have spoken to has mentioned a resolution of any kind, no diets, no yoga videos, no gym memberships or anything else that basically relates to the marketing of health-related products to people sitting on couches, stuffed with turkey and chocolate. Everyone actually seems pretty happy and in fact are more preoccupied with getting out to the beach while they have some free time than anything else.

God, I ended up ranting a little bit there. I do apologise! In a slightly diagonal note, I now have a camera after both my camera and mp3 player broke. I forked out for a multi-functional mp3/mp4/camera/voice-recorder thing-a-me-job. I figured it should be christened with a couple of photos. So here goes:

So this is the first one, just a quick shot of my current pad, up on there on the eighth floor. It’s the balcony just before the top.

And more importantly. This is my ticket to the Bimbo Cup, taking place tonight. I have been reliably informed there will be at least 70,000 bimbos in attendance. This seems like an adequate number. More interestingly, though, is the fact that I will get to see two football matches. The first, Danubio, featuring a ridiculously over-weight Alvaro Recoba, against Nacional, current champions of Paraguay, and the second, Nacional v Penarol, just about one of the biggest rivalries in football, or it would be if these two teams hadn’t been pretty rubbish for the last 20 years. Anyway, normally it is sold out. Stupidly, I forgot to buy a ticket before today and had to pay for the expensive seat. A whopping 5 pounds! It would have been 3 quid if I had acted faster.

My ticket to the Bimbo Cup