Horseback Riding

Gail and I, like the typical Gringos we are, decided to go horseback riding.  We met the owner of the horses one day as he was riding a beautiful horse along the street in front of our condo complex.  The deal was that he would pick us up at our condo and take us to his “ranch”.  We would ride up in the mountains where we could see the town and then come down to the beach for the sunset.  All of this would take about two and half to three hours. 

This sounded like a wonderful afternoon so we made the arrangements.  Right on time we were picked up and whisked away to the horse ranch.

 We waited there for three more people to join us.   At this point we were feeling pretty comfortable.

The three additional people were a mother and her two daughters.  The girls were probably about ten and twelve years old.  They were from Norway, spoke Norwegian naturally, and rode horses two or three times a week.  The oldest daughter was even an equestrian jumper.  It was obvious right off the bat that Gail and I, although we have ridden some in the past, were the weak links.  Once everyone arrived it was time to “head em up and move em out”.

We rode along the side of the highway for a short while and then crossed over and headed up into the mountains.    We rode along this dirt road for quite a while.  Gail and I were looking good and having a great time.

We were traveling on relatively level ground and seeing the extremely dry countryside.

About now we began to notice that these horses never walked, they trotted all the time.

As we continued, we passed some local houses. 

We noticed that at one house it was laundry day and they were hanging the clothes right on the fence.

This might be a good place to point out that the minimum wage in Costa Rica is $2.00 per hour and that the unemployment rate is zero.  So, although everyone is working, they are not always making a lot of money and their homes are certainly not palatial.   I believe these houses are typical of the majority of Costa Ricans in this area.  The bigger homes, mostly on the ocean, are owned by foreigners.

Gail was riding a nice white horse and I was riding “Big Red”.

We passed this one guy on the road who was very insistent that we take his picture.

We continued trotting along and were beginning to feel the effects of the bouncing.

Pretty soon we headed up the mountain. We were going up this rocky, gravely, washed out trail with about a 45 degree slope (it felt like 90 degrees) and these horses wanted to gallop.  I didn't get any pictures--I was just hanging on.

Finally we got to a level spot where we could look out over the countryside.  From this perspective we could tell there were more mountains around us than we thought.

We were able see all the way to Tamarindo Bay.

It was great this view of the Bay

After this way too short of a stop we began "jumping" back down the mountain along another washed out rocky path. 

 Still no pictures.  Still just hanging on. 


(If you look at the first couple pictures of this report, the horses look docile, lazy, sleepy, almost comatose.  Ha, fooled us!   These horses basically jogged up and down a mountain for two and half to three hours with no water.  I can barely walk to and from the beach without stopping at least once for a Cerveza.)

 I could tell there were lots of places on this old body that were beginning to rub raw----Gail was having the same problem.  We finally stopped and let Gail switch to a smaller horse.  The young Norwegians had no problem jumping on to the bigger horse and trotting away.

We finally got back to town and were heading on to the beach for our ride in the surf.   As we passed this one bar I hollered at the Guide and told him we were going to pass on the sunset ride in the surf and just get off here and go in and have a beer.  The others trotted off as Gail and I swaggered across the street into the bar.  What a wonderful feeling to sit on a flat, motionless surface.

As we were sitting there having our Cerveza, we were both lazily envisioning what it would have been like if we would have continued and taken that ride on the beach.

And now, after all of the scabs have disappeared, I am thinking maybe we should have kept going—-no, don’t think so.