SAN SALVADOR — That really does sum it up rather nicely.

All the kids did very well. Even the short kid, while prevented from winning anything because he couldn’t reach anything, did a great job where he could. And the kid whose ego we wanted taken down a notch didn’t do as well as he did in the last competition.

But the interesting part is that climbing turns out to be the rare sport where nobody gives a flying hoot about competition or winning. People at this event routinely cheered on the opposition, clapping and yelling ferociously whenever a good move was pulled off. The Salvadoran parents happily chatting with the Costa Rican parents, etc.

It was more or less everything my youthful baseball experiences were not.

Maybe there are just too few people engaged in the sport to get people all riled up about it. Or maybe it’s this technical reason: a group of climbing friends will typically bring only one rope. One person climbes, one person holds the end of the rope to make sure the climber doesn’t meet an untimely death, and the rest just sit around chatting or yelling up advice or encouragement. (This last bit is called “spray” in the ever-complicated climbing language.)

Maybe it’s just about being outside against a big pile of rock on a nice day.

Whatever the case, it seemed like everyone was enjoying themselves while engaged in this highly respectable yet dull pasttime. Me, I spent the weekend feeling as though I had been beaten repeatedly with a stick, thanks to a little bug I picked up somewhere on that 19-hour bus ride to San Salvador.

Luckily, these climbers have all these crash pads lying around, and they are excellent places to sleep. Now that was interesting.