After picking Cheng up from his B&B in San Joaquin just 5 minutes down the road, we got dropped off into town. We were there with heaps of time to spare, since the bus was coming at 9am, so we had a little walk around the town to show Cheng some of the main places since he hadn't been in the cities of Costa Rica at all. We then met up with some of Jose's friends, Pamela who was the member of the country club that we were going to, we were going as her guests, along with two of her friends.
While on the bus, Cheng showed Jose and I lots of his photos of his trip, it seemed as though he had a really good time. This bus was quite unusual, as there were 3 seats on one side, and 2 on the other. As usual though, my knees were touching the seat in front.
When we reached San Rafael, Rodolfo joined us on the bus. The church in San Rafael is very grand and quite a sight to see.
We then rode the bus for about 15 more minutes before getting off it when we had arrived at the gates of Castillo Country Club on the hills of Volcano Barva. This place felt very elite, and was very very large. The lanes were lined with huge trees, there was a swimming pool, tennis courts, football fields, basketball courts, a small castle, a lake, a train, a restaurant, mini golf, lots of sheltered barbecue areas and much more. It felt like a different world.
While we were walking up to the main building, I finally learned why the bottom of the tree trunks in many places here are painted white. It is because it isn't just white paint, but rather also a substance to stop the ants from crawling up the trees, I had been wondering for so long.
We all decided that we would do mini golf first. While we played, I had a speaker of one of the others sticking out of my bag which was playing music wirelessly from my iPod. You can never be anywhere without music. The 18 holes took just on 2 hours to play, and we battled through spouts of rain and a whole lot of wind. Cheng and I were both very hungry by the time we had finished, so we went into the main building area where the pool was to have lunch. My meal of a pizza took awhile to arrive and once it did we went outside to eat in one of the little hut places.
While we were eating, Pamela pointed out that there was a squirrel running along the fence railing that was just beside us. They are so cool. To me it doesn't seem real to be seeing squirrels because they are something from the movies for me. Also while we were eating there were some strange looking swans that were very interested in the food that we were eating. They had no fear of us, as no matter how hard I tried to shoo them away they just wouldn't go.
Rodolfo added up the scores of the mini golf, and turns out I won, by 19 points.
After lunch we had a little lie in the sun on a little hill. Cheng sat at the top of a slide writing his journal of his trip here. The slide was quite different, having tiles as the sliding surface, it made for a very bumpy ride. Jose and I ended up making some cool slo-motion videos using Pamela's iPhone while we were there.
A little later once Cheng had finished writing, we took a walk to the little castle that was at the top of the hill. We were hoping to be able to look out at the view of the cities in the valley below, but the trees were too high.
We then four of us, Jose, Rodolfo, Cheng and I, went inside to have a swim. However, once we were inside Jose and Rodolfo decided to go off to the sauna while Cheng and I wanted to play some of the games that were there. We were wanting to play some table tennis, but the table was occupied so we saw a foosball table that was unoccupied and decided to play that instead.
However there was no ball. But just then some people asked if we wanted to play with them, they had the ball. Cheng and I had met some new people. There were 5 of them, all from Heredia, and they were quite surprised when I told them that I am 17. There were two guys, Jose Eduardo and Alonso and three girls Carolina, Maite and Lucy. They were really nice.
We played a few games of foosball, before Cheng and I played some table tennis because the table had become free.
After awhile playing that, Cheng, Alonso, Jose Eduardo and I decided to all go off into the steam room and sauna. I had never been into a steam room before so it was a new experience for me.
It was horrible. I felt like I could hardly breathe because the air was so damp and hot. The two Costa Ricans found it the same as me, but Cheng absolutely loved it. He has used them quite a few times.
It was funny because there was the three of us gasping for breath while Cheng was just sitting there peacefully with his eyes shut enjoying it so much.
After about 15 minutes we moved on to the sauna, which again was too hot for me. I find the idea of both the steam room and the sauna quite strange. For me the idea of going into a really hot humid room doesn't seem relaxing for me.
Cheng was wanting to get back for dinner at his B&B by 7pm, so we knew that we would have to be leaving soon because it was already 4:30. Cheng and I thought the bus would be coming at about half five, but after only 5 minutes in the pool, Jose came and told us that it actually came at 5.
Cheng and I got out so quickly that we nearly forgot to say goodbye to our new friends. We got changed, I grabbed the number of one of the guys so we could all find each other on Facebook, and then ran out to the front gate. Jose hadn't been by the pool so we'd just assumed that he was already out waiting for the bus. Turns out all the others were still by the main building and were coming now, we'd been in such a rush that we'd ran straight past them.
The bus turned up at about 5:15 and we took it back to Heredia. I had a little freak out on the bus, when I thought that one of the girls had my iPod still yet they said they didn't. I found it when I checked my bag a second time :)
We got back to Heredia and left the others. While we were walking to a place to catch a taxi Cheng dashed into a optometrist to get the screws in his glasses tightened as they had been loose all day. It amazed me how Cheng, without knowing much Spanish was able to communicate so well still.
Then Cheng, Jose and I caught a taxi back to home, before dropping Cheng off at his B&B and saying our farewells. His flight was at 7am the next day, and he was getting up at 3am, ouch.
Back at home, I managed to find our new friends on Facebook. I think it is the coolest thing meeting new people coincidentally.
It was so awesome to be able to spend a whole day hanging out with Cheng. Today, I didn't feel like I was in a different country.
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| Out the front of the Country Club grounds |
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