As you can reads at the Wikipedia article linked above, it is a game derived from a traditional indigineous game, and is mostly played in small towns and cities. We spoke to someone from Cali at the courts, and he had never played before, so definatley more of a rural sport.
It is basically, for lack of a better comparison, a mix of horshoes and bocce with explosives.
The games are played to 21 or 30 points, and points are achieved by the degree of accuracy of the players toss. Adults (primarily men, some of our female traveler friends noted there was not even a womens bathroom in the place) throw metal discs about 80 feet towards a box that measure about 3x3 made of a soft clay. The goal is to get the disc to stick in the clay, preferably inside of a flint ring of about 6 inches in diameter. This flint is lined with either two or four paper packets containing some kind of explosive powder. The consequesnce, as one can imagine is that if the metal disc hits the flint near the paper pouches, there is an explosion! An explosion will get you 3 points. If you get an explosion and the disc sticks in the center of the ring, then you recieve 9 points. A direct hit inside the ring with no explosion is 6 points, and if no one achieves any of those (and for amatuers playing at 80 ft, the explosions and bullseyes are rare indeed), then one point goes to the player whose disc is closest to the center.
We played on the kiddie courts at first (25 ft) and enjoyed several explosions and bullseyes, but moving on to the professional distance, we were proud enough to merely get the disc to stick into the clay from that far away.
As you can see from my attempt here, the distance is no joke!
