Pucallpa's Official Stadium

It was a really nice stadium. It was some quality time on a quality pitch. Its the best field down here.

Cow Tongue

Ok so here is our veggie girl getting outside the box and trying some cow tongue and rice. There was a whole crew of them that ate it. The rest of us unadventurous people just had rotisserie chicken and beans and rice!

National University of Ucayali

So we played the local university team tonight. They really enjoyed us as we did them. We played at the Official Stadium of Pucalpa. It holds about 2000 people. We were the prelude to a pretty important club cup game for the men in the city.

Motorbike

So we arrived in Pucallpa today and it was not what we expected. It is really a big city. (200,000 people) It is the end of the line as far as the travel on the Ucayali River is concerned. The Ucayali is a headway to the Amazon. Meaning, past here there is only dugout canoes with outboard motors to take you farther. The town is filled with about 50,000 “motorbikes.” It’s a moped with 3 seats. The main mode of transportation. There are more of those than anything on the road. Its like slalom skiing. Hers is Nat and Jonesy getting a ride to the night game. Super fun!

The Clinic

Here is the field we did the clinic on. That’s Paul and Bitty demonstrating the proper technique for knocking the ball. The clinic was good and we organized a scrimmage between campers at the end. It was the Grace Soccer Academy, on location in the outskirts of Pucallpa, Peru.

The Village Reception

So the participants in the clinic and the sports ministers there have away to receive you as you enter the village. As we exited the bus they formed a straight line and sang to us. It lasted about 10 minutes. The song was accompanied by drums, tambourine, and a flute like instrument. The look on the women’s face was priceless when they joked with us about, “now its your turn to sing us a song from your homeland.” Songs like happy birthday and Michael Row Your Boat a Shore came to mind. Fortunate for us, and them, we did not have to sing. Lol.

Pucallpa

We flew from Lima to Pucallpa. Its about an hour by plane on a regular jet plane. Upon arrival in Pucallpa we headed to a village just outside town to do a clinic. It was an eye opening experience to the real life of Pucallpan Peruvians living conditions.