Horseback Riding

I had so much fun snorkeling and dolphin watching yesterday that I decided to go back to the tour shop today to set up some additional tours for the rest of the week. I had planned to do horseback riding, a nighttime turtle watching trip and another snorkel trip. When I got there, I noticed that this tour shop also does day trips to some other parts of Costa Rica, and they look amazing. I talked to the tour guy and he recommended that I do an overnight trip to a national part at Rincon then spent the following day at the Arenal Volcano. I told him I wanted to think about it, but I went ahead and booked horseback riding for this afternoon. I spent all day trying to decide what to do about the overnight trip. It’s very reasonably priced, I would have a private guide, and overall, it seemed like a good deal. But, it’s also a lot of time driving to various locations. It would be about 5 hours each day in a car. So, I’ve decided to do a single day trip. I’ve never been to Rincon so I’m going to go there, see the waterfall and do some hiking but still be back at my apartment by supper. I think that will be fun and less exhausting than the two day trip.

I went horseback riding at 3:30pm. I probably should have asked how long the horseback riding trip was, but it was already 3:30 so I thought it couldn’t be that long. As it turned out, it was three hours of the slowest riding I’ve ever done. My horse was big and beautiful. His name was Canelo (Cinnamon), but he was in no hurry to get anywhere. I spoke to him in three different languages and none of them had any effect. He also preferred to walk in the weeds as opposed to the road, which meant he kept running me into trees. At one point, my guide yelled “watch out, that one has thorns,” and sure enough, it was a beautiful, flowering plant with some pretty solid spikes on the stems. I had to do some sophisticated acrobatics to avoid being skewered. It also rained on us for a significant part of the trip. It started raining fairly soon after we left. My guide was an elderly guy missing some teeth, he seemed unbothered by the rain, and assumed that I wouldn’t be bothered either. He noted that it was raining and we kept on going into the forest. I don’t actually mind the rain and it made things cooler so I was okay with that. After three hours, when it started raining again, I was feeling less okay about it. I went for a run this morning, then did weights, then did three hours of riding. I think every part of my body will hurt tomorrow. It hurt to sit down in my chair for supper tonight and I doubt that situation will improve by tomorrow.

Even though the horse riding trip was too long, we went on some beautiful trails that I didn’t know existed here. If you know where to look, you can find some really amazing trails, but you need to live here to know where they are. My guide took me up on some huge bluffs overlooking the ocean. It was foggy and raining and beautiful. At one spot, you look down and there’s a huge section of volcanic rock that looks like it just flowed into the ocean. The water around it is clear and blue. My guide said it was a good place for fishing. He likes to fish. We also briefly visited a turtle hatchery. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any baby turtles but it was neat to see the effort to increase turtle populations here. My guide didn’t speak English, so I got some good Spanish practice. He seemed to know everyone we met along the way. He grew up here, so he probably does know everyone.

I’m completely exhausted again tonight, but overall it was a good day and tomorrow I’ll go set up my trip to Rincon. I’m hoping to go there on Wednesday. I’m posting a few pictures below. I had already been rained on by the time these were taken.