It involves gunpowder. Yes, really. We drank, we missed our targets, we drank again. Eventually one of us hit it.
I’d been in Medellin for maybe two months when a friend of a friend said “you have to play Tejo”. I asked what Tejo was. He said “it’s like horseshoes but with gunpowder”.
I assumed he was joking. He wasn’t.
How Tejo works (as I understand it)
You stand at one end of a long sand-filled lane. At the other end, there’s a clay target with small folded paper packets of gunpowder stuck around the bullseye. You throw a heavy metal puck — a tejo — and try to hit the gunpowder. When you hit it, it goes bang. Loud bang. Everybody cheers. You drink.
If you miss but land closest to the bullseye, you get points anyway. You drink less but you still drink.
There’s no version of this game where you don’t drink.
My first night
The place was huge. Like a warehouse with maybe twenty Tejo lanes side by side. Each lane was its own group of friends, each group at various stages of intoxicated.
I missed everything. My first three throws went into the wall behind the target. I’m not exaggerating. The puck is heavier than you’d think, and the lane is longer than you’d expect. I gave up on aim and just hurled the thing.
The tenth throw, I hit it. Bang. The whole place — every lane, every group — turned to look. I’d interrupted twenty other games with my one moment of luck.
Everybody clapped. Somebody bought me a beer. I’d just made twenty new friends I’d never see again.
What I wasn’t ready for
A few things nobody warns you about :
It is genuinely dangerous-feeling. The bangs are loud. The pucks are heavy. Tejo is taken seriously enough that nobody gets hurt, but as a first-timer with bad aim, you sweat.
You drink steadily for hours. Not in shots. In small steady beers. By midnight you’re not drunk, you’re a different person.
The vibe is family-friendly? I saw kids playing on lanes next to ours. Grandfathers. Couples. It’s not a “rowdy bar” thing. It’s Colombia’s national sport. Like bowling, but with explosives.
I went back twice more before I left Medellin. Didn’t get any better.