Have you figured out what rana means in English? I'll give you a hint: it’s a creature!
Yermis
Although the origin and history of yermis is a mystery, it is clear that this game has been played for more than 60 years, mainly by children. It is likely that it originated by the Caribbean coast of Colombia from the influence of baseball. Also, it is unclear why it is called yermis! There are some myths or legends around this fun game, but the truth is, it is a typical, traditional game of Colombia. It is played from San Andrés all the way in the north, to Leticia, all the way in the south.
I learned about all of these different traditional games, but the only game I got to play was rana. When I was in La Macarena, Francisco, my tour guide, explained how the game works:
Rana consists of a table with holes on a horizontal plane that have different values. On the sides vertically, there are also holes that have higher values. Doesn't sound too hard, right?
The difficult part is the metal frog has a mouth opening to exactly fit a ring. The table consists of: frog, mill, two bridges and five holes. Each has an assigned score: the frog 50 points, the mill 25 points, the bridge 10 points and the remaining holes 5 points. The throwing distance is 3.5 meters. Whoever has the highest score after 100 tosses wins!
Francisco and I didn't each throw 100 times, but he still would have beaten me if we had.
