Our excellent tour guide, Fernando, rented us surf boards and
took us to the nicest beach I have ever seen. He explained to us
that the low tide created a path to an island and consequently
created another beach. It was neat having ocean in front of us and
behind us. So we crossed the path to the island to climb up a hill,
which we all expected to be easy. Come to find out, it had steep
slippery rocks and wet dirty paths. I thought for sure one of us
was going to wipe out, thankfully no one did. A couple courageous
individuals (myself not included) kept venturing to the other side
of the hill. The hill allowed us to see the city we were staying in
and a breathtaking vantage point on the ocean.
To cap off the night we played at a gym in the city of
Cubàtoa. Outside of the building there was a banner
advertising for the game with Penn State Behrend E.U.A on it. It
was neat to see, and we knew we were going to have a fun
environment. The second biggest television station filmed our game
and conducted interviews with coach and some players. All
throughout the game there were kids and even adults lined up behind
our bench asking for our names. We didn't know if we should talk to
them or not for fear that coach wouldn't approve it during a game.
Once the game ended, we spent the next thirty minutes being swarmed
by kids. Justin has been a crowd favorite (maybe because he handed
out silly bands). During that time I approached a player on the
other team and he wanted to trade me a futbol jersey for one of my
Behrend shirts. I was shocked he wanted to do so, but I made the
trade.
We won the game, but the atmosphere made the experience something
we will never forget. Fernando (our guide) thanked us and told us
how thankful the city is to have us play and impact them in a
positive way.