Futból en Perú

I know, surprise, surprise, soccer in South America? No....really? I am not an avid soccer fan, but did play when I was younger and love being at any sporting event when people are really into the game. A few friends from Portland and I have been talking about going to the World Cup in Brazil in 2014. What an experience that would be!  We shall see...

The Sunday after we arrived in Huaraz, we went to a local soccer game, Ancash vs Cristal (a team from Lima). We hadn´t eaten anything since breakfast so figured we would ¨splurge¨ on food at the 3:00pm game.

However, once inside, we realized there were no concessions with outrageously priced food, just people off the streets selling what they would on the streets, at the stadium, super cheaply. I think the three of us (Andy, Kyle and myself) ridiculously tried nearly everything: chicken and a potato halved (served cold of course) for about $1.30, turkey sandwhich (with dinky fries on it) for about $0.75, strawberry sucker, sugarized peanuts and popcorn for about $0.30 each.

Kyle buying popcorn from a little boy. Behind him you can see another lady with popcorn, chips and such.

View from our seats. These tickets were 10 soles each or about $3.50 to sit where you see the vast majority of people sitting in this picture.

Kyle said the stadium was built with way too big for the amount of people who go to the games. You can´t see it in this picture, but there are lights so they can play at night, as well as seating in the endzones.

The Ancash soccer team before the game.

It was interesting to determine which team to root for, but we didn't want to embarrass ourselves and ask which team was the home team. Neither team had their name on their jerseys. After each team was announced, they had their picture taken. The team above was cheered for quite loudly when announced. Then when the team pictured below was announced, there were a few cheers, but lots of whistles so we were slightly confused. As the game went on, we realized the whistling is like booing in the United States.

We weren´t sure what team was Ancash (who we were supposed to root for), but this turned out to be the other team, Cristal, from Lima.

It was a fun game to watch, and interesting because every time Ancash scored a goal, we were excited and wanted to stand up to cheer, but no one else did. Isn´t a goal a big deal in soccer? I mean, there waws excited cheering of course, but we felt more excited a goal was scored than anyone else seemed. Anyways, there were a handful of yellow cards given, but no one thrown out. Ancash beat Cristal 3-0 and it was awesome to be rooting for the winning team.

Kyle and Andy during halftime.

Thanks for tuning in! The next couple posts will have details of adventuring to the ruins of Chavin de Huantar as well as the day hike up past Lake Llaganuco to Lake Sixty-Nine.