¡hasta ver adiós!

On Sundays, don't play fútbol with Jorge.

You'll leaving your house around 10 A.M. wearing a t-shirt, shorts, running shoes, and a light-weight, long-sleeved REI shirt with a quarter zip. You'll bring your house keys and a Nalgene full of agua.

You'll cram into the cab of a camión normally used to transport piñas or melónes but today it will be hauling players. You'll cruise around the bumpy, potholed, dirt streets of San Marcos for 45 minutes, meandering lazily, picking people up, stopping by the market.

You'll drive up the windy mountain road to Transito. Go all the way through town to the end of the road. A dusty, rocky football pitch will unfold along with players kitted in Barça and Argentina uniforms. Lingering beyond will be highland coffee fields on green slopes while smokey gray and fluffy white clouds will mix above, casting ever-changing shadows across the hills and pitch. Bright azul sky will peek through now and again. The sun will appear as often as the sporadic drops of rain.

You'll wish you had your camera.

You'll knock the ball around and be informed that you can't play because it is a tournament and there are reglas. The pelota will bounce awkwardly over the uneven ground and constantly roll down the hillside. A sloppy but entertaining first half will end 1–nil for Jorge's team.

You'll eat some sketchy pollo y papas fritas with some strange ensalada at medio tiempo. You didn't bring any money but Nelson will cover you. He will ask if you want a cerveza. You'll say, "Claro, por supeusto." He will introduce you to his daughter Alondra. The wind will blow really hard now and you'll be freezing. The ice-cold Tecate won't help either.

You'll run into a guy named Angel. You met him at the liquor store in San Marcos two days prior. He spent eight years in Sacramento and loves Americans.* He will persistently offer you cervezas. You'll accept his generosity but damn that whipping wind will make you shiver.

They'll win 5–nil. Then comes the sixers of Tecate, a bottle of Bacardi, some citrus ron. You'll drink in the grass, hitch a ride in the back of a pickup, stop at a pulpería. You'll leave your Nalgene in the bed of the truck because you think you're just making a pit stop, probably to buy más cervezas.

They'll call you inside. You'll go behind the counter and around into a side room containing a table and some chairs. Sit. Drink. When the cervezas run out, there will always be more. You're drinking inside the store. You'll teach them how to shotgun, they'll love it.

It'll get dark outside and you'll still be sitting at that table surrounded by empty, crushed Tecate cans. You'll play with the kids dressed in tattered, stained costumes.

You're glad you didn't bring your camera. You would've lost it.

You'll get a ride back home around 8 P.M. but 6 A.M. will come much, much too early the next morning. Monday morning will be miserable.

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*You cannot say American to refer to people from the USA in Latin America. Everyone is an American. I am norteamericano but I believe that technically includes Canadians as well, and I don't wanna be grouped with them. So I don't know what to call us.