Today was a busy day for all of us. It was not a very pleasant start to the morning as we were scrambling to find a ticket to Summit Stories which didn’t exist. Of course, it is partly my fault that I did not take note of all the dates of the special activities, which resulted in this unfortunate incident. I think it just reminded me to be on my toes for as many things as possible as a leader.

We were intending to go for the Canopy Tour, but by the time we reached the queue time was already 1.5h. We then decided to go for mountain biking which had a shorter queue. It was our first time doing mountain biking, and I felt that it was rather exciting yet dangerous. It was biking on a whole new level. I attempted to go for the Skills Course (a course which you must pass to go for more advanced trails) but I did not pass that! But that’s ok – I heard from those who went that it was very difficult. It was a fun experience – but I’ll rather go for the simple trails!

Queueing for mountain biking

After that, we went to The Barrels for shooting. Another unfortunate incident occurred where the lady giving the briefing said that the waiting time at The Barrels West was 4 hours. That was inaccurate though – the waiting time for pistols was about 45 minutes, shotguns about 2 hours and rifles had no waiting time. But after we sought that misunderstanding out, we proceeded to play with shotguns. It too was a unique experience. The gun felt terribly heavy, and I am also terrible at aiming. The first time I shot the gun the recoil nearly threw me back. While my accuracy was highly unimpressive (read: 0), I still enjoyed myself.

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Ready to fire?

The day concluded with a visit to the Eucador subcamp as part of the Global Ambassador programme. I went with my buddy to the subcamp, and was welcomed by Maya. We didn’t know what to expect as they spoke Spanish and we spoke English, but they were all incredibly hospitable. We ate a traditional Eucador dish – chicken, tomato, potato, rice which was very delicious. We also traded, talked about scouts and school, and learnt that we had many things in common (for instance: too much homework and sleeping at 1am). They had very many subjects – 13 to 15! Their school day ends much earlier though, at about 12pm.

We proceeded to exchange simple phrases in Spanish and Chinese. We tried to translate their names into Chinese which was a very inspired exercise. They taught us a Spanish card game as well. I am terrible at card games so I followed along sheepishly. My buddy was great though – he got the game very quickly! We played until 8.30pm, before it was time to bid farewell.

A picture together

It was a tiring day filled with many things. I enjoyed the Eucador exchange the most. It is always great when scouts from opposite sides of the world can find common ground and mingle together, not as different scouts, but as friends.