Bogota Final Part: Chiva Rumbera and Parties!

If we take into account that Colombians are known as the “party kings” and combine that with a young team of Argentineans lovers of new technologies, we could start to get the picture about how good organized was the whole Championship.

People of redeletras.com, the official web for playing Spanish Scrabble online, had been responsible of the technical organization, including, of course, retransmissions. FISE´s staff made the organization of the Championship and the different tourneys, meaning while the tourneys where played, but the Colombian Scrabble organization made, as good hosts, a great job during the time we weren´t playing.

The Scrabble Colombia team had take care of every single detail, from sending us mails the days before asking us if we prefer them to arrange taxis to wait us at the airport, made a welcome letter including prevention indications and how to behave at the city in case we go around alone, prepared a quite complete activities program for the different days the tourney lasted, most of the activities ended with party! (When they weren´t the organizators of the party, Rede´s people did!) :D and even they had done a very happy song talking about a couple that found love playing Scrabble! :D



So, every night some of us were at the different parties, some others playing Scrabble at the lobby. Yes, we just can´t get enough! And it´s not usual to have the bests of the world at the same place! So! We finished the championship inebriated of Scrabble and party! :D



With no doubts, the best party was the Chiva Rumbera one. First of all, I should explain what is a “chiva rumbera”. The chiva is a kind of bus, but with some differences from the normal ones we all know. First of all, instead of having 2 lines of sits per row, it´s just 1 line, going from one wall to the other, so, every line has it´s own door. There are no windows at the sides. Some of them have no some of the sits in order to give space to a musicians group. This all make them perfect for having party inside! And that´s exactly the goal! :D When you go into a Chiva Rumbera, it means you´ll have a party at the bus (could be with a real life musicians group, could be with cd´s) while you are giving a ride. The ride includes drinks that usually are rum. Depending on the place, you´ll go to some places or others, but the point is to have a city seeing night tour that includes a visit to a viewpoint where the Chiva stops, usually several at the same time, to make a big party, but this is just one of the stops, not the end… the end usually is at the most fashion discos street. Wherever you go with the Chiva, everybody will now a Chiva is coming due the big noise of the music inside of it… so, usually people will stop a bit for greeting the Chivas. Usually different Chivas met at the streets and it becomes into a fight for being the faster and the one with people having more fun.

In our case, we had 2 Chivas that took us from the hotel and made a tour going first to the party zone of the city, then to the La Calera overview, where we stopped for a while and then we went back to the hotel.





You see, in situations like this one is quite interesting to watch out how the different cultures behave. Since the beginning, all the people from Latin America were laughing, dancing, singing and drinking. The Spanish ones were a bit serious at the beginning, like watching what was going on… even some kept on sited big part of the way to the overview point. .. one liter of Rum latter… hehehehe! Spanish team was unrecognizable! Even Juan Carlos Ayala, that usually is so quiet and serious, was dancing! I was at his side and once he told me “Ho! In this country everybody dance! Even me, that haven´t dance in my whole life… and look at me! Now even I am dancing!”







When we were going back to the hotel, most of the people started to relax a bit, knowing the party will be over soon… but the Spanish team at this point was at the middle of the fun and went out of the Chiva, in front of the hotel, cheering: “we all want more, we all want more… we all want more, much more and much more!” :P But I´m afraid it was so late and all the people were concerned about the matches to play the day after.



The party, in all the versions (dancing or playing Scrabble) ;) had been all the nights of the championship. Topo and I had the flight for coming back home the morning after the last day of the tourney. Again the way back meant to go first from Bogota to Miami, where we stayed some hours (not enough for going out to watch a bit, but enough for doing some shopping at the airport stores and for eat something while playing a Scrabble). Then, from Miami to Madrid… and for Topo some more hours till finally arrive in Barcelona. Before leaving Bogota, Topo had been playing Scrabble… in my case, I had been dancing and dancing and dancing! We were 8 the ones that had been dancing till 5.00 in the morning, I´m afraid I had to leff then, the taxi for going to the airport would be waiting us at the door of the hotel at 5.30 and I haven´t finished to put all inside my bag already! But I even took a shower before leaving the hotel!  Yeap, I had been dancing the whole night without sleeping after finishing the championship and went to the airport quite tired… but… we´ll have a lot of hours at the plane to sleep!