There’s an obvious advantage to meeting the local people when you’re traveling.  You get to step out of and away from the often-structured traveler’s trail and experience life as, well, as the locals live it.

And this is exactly what happened last week in Salento, Colombia when my new friend, Andres, invited me to a party at a finca (coffee farm), a party he said that only happens once a month.  Well, then. 

We returned to my hostel, gathered my other new friends, foreigners like me, and squeezed into an old Jeep for a precarious twenty minute ride.  Because I had a somewhat-prized seat in the front, I couldn’t tell how many people we had hanging on for the ride, but later I learned that we maxed out at thirteen.

We had roadies for the road and no clear idea of how we’d be getting back into town, though Andres had assured me that we would, indeed, be getting back in town.  I was all for roughing it (had been doing some variation of that for the past nine months, after all) but the thought of being stranded on some farm far from the center of town with no promise of a place to sleep wasn’t sitting well with me.

A smart guy, Andres had sold the fiesta to me as one of drinking, dancing, and hanging out someplace cool, doing something different and unique, but he had gotten the attention of the boys when he described the cockfights.

And it is the latter that was, it seemed, the draw of the finca party, the entertainment, the main event. 

No matter.  I mainly ignored the actual fighting and proceeded to make friends with the other partygoers, at least the partygoers who were willing to steer their eyes away from the matches and attempt to understand my imperfect Spanish among the riotous cheering surrounding us.

I met a couple of Colombian military and persuaded them to let me touch their guns. 

I became fascinated with the ten-year-old Colombian boy who I felt was up way past his bedtime, all for the sake of watching two roosters demolish each other. 

When I objected to what was going on in the ring– ”No me gusta…” I told Andres (when he asked me what I thought) though in English to my fellow travelers, I had a whole lot more to say–I received a short speech (from my US buddies) on how this was obviously a Colombian tradition and should be respected even if I didn’t agree with it.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I wasn’t making a scene; in fact, I was having a grand old time.  I was just more interested in mingling than gambling.

In the end, it was Andres, the Colombian, who was ready to leave the party before the rest of us.  We talked him into staying for an extra hour, but then, as transportation back to town was scarce, we had to listen to reason and stake our spots in the overcrowded jeep.  It’s a small miracle we all made it back unharmed, this time with Andres on the roof and countless bodies standing and holding on, while I once again occupied a spot in the front.

The next day, when the new hostel arrivals asked me what I’d been doing in Salento and I explained about the party on the finca, their eyes grew rounder and they inquired about how they could find their way into a finca. I had to tell them that they’d be hanging around Salento a long time if they wanted to drink beer on a finca and watch cocks fight.

But who’s to say what other chevere (cool) thing they might fall into if they fell in with a local.

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