My first horse riding experience. In a torrential downpour.

Today was nothing short of extraordinary in every sense of the word.

It was my very first time ever horseback riding, and we rode these horses up  steep, muddy paths, through a small river that barely reached the horses' knees, and all too close to the edge of a few cliffs, which I squeamishly leaned away from.

My horse made no note of my terror at these points, merely plodding along and ignoring any attempts I made at pulling the reins to change its direction. I would have been much happier, you see, to be farther away from the steep road edges, which I kept imagining myself tumbling down, but the horse seemed to gain pleasure from my unease. Sometimes I think it even moved closer to these uncertain edges.

However, for the most part riding the horse went well, and it was a happy event.

Ok, how do I work this thing?

We rode to a small waterfall where we swam, and there was a small ledge for us to dive off from into the waterfall. As one can expect, this was a lot of fun and we had a great time.

After we swam, we hiked back up to the horses (we had to be careful, on one part of there trail you had to walk fast past the soldier ant nests, their stings HURT!) and were fed fresh coconut water and starfruit off a nearby tree!

When we got back on the horses to head back for lunch, it started to rain. The rain then turned into sheets of water, and within minutes it was like someone was pouring buckets of water on our heads. A thunder and lighting storm accompanied this steady downpour, and we raced over muddy trails and down slippery hills to make it past the river before it flooded.

Despite our best efforts, and the cool calm the horses seemed to show, we didn't make it back to the river in time to get all of the horses across. While a brave Tico (his nickname was Tico, too) took a couple of horses expertly across, despite the water rising to their chests, most of the horses were stuck on the other side.

We crossed by a wobbly bridge that hung over the now flooded river, and walked for a ways while we waited for a truck to come and collect us.

The sun had come out again by the time our rescue truck came, and we all squeezed into the back of a pick up truck and hung on for dear life as the drivers sped back on the dirt roads to get us back in time for lunch.

After we returned safe and alive for lunch, Manda, Annie, Attrace and Samuel joined me on a sea kayaking adventure, where we saw a small salt water crocodile watching us in the river. Unfortunately Annie got too close and scared him away both times we saw him.

After a week of Costa Rica exploration, we crashed early that night, with worry about what school might be like and how to describe what we did in Spanish to our host Parents.

After a long drive home on Sunday, we said our goodbyes to the kids who were going to Puntarenas or Heridea, while Manda, Annie, myself and a couple of others would be staying in San Ramon!