DAY 14d
MAR DEL PLATA ~ Gameday 1
Monday September 22nd, 2014
TODAYS MILEAGE – 16 miles or 25 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 14881 miles or 23949 kilometres
20th Annual Golden Oldies Rugby Festival
From the festival's organizing committees standpoint, the first day could not have gone much worse.
The day started with them only allowing three 2 litre bottles of water per team to properly hydrate with. There was no ice what so ever for injury management or treatment and there were no toilets or showers for those of us who had the first matches of the day.
As the drink-up was being held at another venue, we headed over to the 4 busses that were parked up at the entrance of the festival grounds and waited …. and waited ….. and waited ….. and waited. After an hour and a half of standing in the sun, I approached one bus driver who was snoozing at the steering wheel, he pointed me to another bus - who’s driver was on the phone to his girlfriend, while 6 police officers were seated in the bus watching soccer on TV.
After explaining the situation to the driver and only getting a shrug, one of the police officers came over and said to the driver in English “you don’t want a couple hundred thirsty rugby players taking your bus do you?” The driver fires up the bus and the Dingoes hear our South American battle cry – “Dingoes Vamos!”
The police officer then proceeds to saddle up two of his motorbike riding colleagues to escort us with lights and sirens to the drink-up venue.
Just when you think that the day could do with a beverage and a happy ending …… we arrived at a venue called Sobremonte to find a multi-facetted nightclub and dive bar, who’s sticking it to us all by charging $12.00 USD for a 1 litre bottle of beer. I spoke with one of the Festival organising committee, who merely brushed me off with little care or concern with a “We were paying nearly $40.00 for beer at the drink-up in Fukuoka (Japan) two years ago, so $12 is quite reasonable” and then walks off. While he may have been paying that, I didn’t hear of anyone paying anywhere near that – more like $3.00 a 500 millilitre cup.
Anyways, I wasn’t the only one unhappy with the venues blatant gouging, as so many people complained and voted with their feet by leaving. Most of the teams bypassed the venue after the second day of games, which saw the organising committee having to guarantee the original advertised festival pricing – but it was too little too late for the final day of matches, as the measures didn’t improve crowds at the drink-up by much either.
One can only hope festival's organizing committee gets their shit together for the rest of the week.
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