Horseback in the Rain

We left today at around 8:00am for a horseback adventure with our guide, Darwin. Darwin got each of us set up on our horses, shortening mum’s stirrups and lengthening mine…..twice! The morning was sunny and hot. We began our ride along the beach, getting familiar and comfortable with our horses. Eventually we turned up the road towards the town here in Drake Bay and wound our way through along the gravel road that services the town. Eventually we met up with a small river that we used as a horsey highway to get to the Aguila river, the river our hotel is named after. I constantly had to push my horse, Quisco, to keep up. After a while I wondered if I was going to wear a hole in the sides of the horse! Then, the guide could see I was always well behind everyone and offered to switch horses. It was like going from driving a Ford sedan to a Porsche. All I had to do was let the reigns loose and the horse leapt forward. It was totally the reverse going from having to prod the horse to having to restrain the horse. Darwin had less difficulty getting Quisco to move but I’m glad I switched as I didn’t sign up to have to work my horse. We rode along the river for quite a few miles going from point bar to point bar. The ride out ended with us dismounting and leaving the horses to take a steep and slippery trail over a hill to a gorgeous waterfall. We hiked down to the waterfall, enjoying the view up close. We chose not to swim as we were tired by this point and realized we needed to start getting back. The clouds overhead got greyer and darker by the minute. We went from hot sun to cool rain in just a matter of 15 minutes.

We got back on the horses and I started riding back pretty fast. The horses know they’re heading back and they wanted get going too. We rode, often at a trot, covering the same distances in half the time. The ride got interesting when we had to take a small trail that is a detour around a drop in the river. We had taken this trail on the way up and it was muddy then but now it was pouring and the trails were very slippery. All the soil around here is red shale – there’s tons and tons of it. That red shale gets massively slippery when it is wet and it plays a factor in how slippery the soil gets. I rode the horse along the mud trail and let it pick the trail. The horse got going way too fast and the trail turned into a series of overlapping and crossing routes. I should have pulled the horse to the right hand trail but it was moving so fast and picked up speed to make it up a steeper but shorter route. The horse slipped on the hill and its hooves gave out. The horse tumbled to the ground where we sat in the mud. It tried getting up with me on it, twice, when I finally jumped from its back. The horse was already heavily on its side and I needed to get off before it rolled right over onto me. I leapt off into knee deep mud landing on my ass. The mud was so sticky that my but was stuck in it. I put my arm down to get up and I buried it to my elbow. Darwin saw me go down and bolted past on his horse. I had not been able to hold onto the reigns of the horse and when I got off it, it was able to get up and tore off towards the river. It took off with my shoe, still in the stirrup. I walked out to the river and by that point looked like I had been mud wrestling with myself. I just sat down in the river and washed the mud off. Luckily we had put all the camera gear in the dry bag so I didn’t have to worry about things getting wet. The guide was so apologetic but it was just what happens. We had some real adventure on this ride. I got back on and we rode of at a speedy clip back home. The rain was pounding down on us but the ride home was great. Everybody that we passed along the way was cuddling themselves, cold in the rain.

We returned to the hotel just drenched and decided to use the laundry service for a bag full of laundry. They just charge by the load.

We had a ton of fun today.

Today at lunch we sat with our new friends, a family that we have gotten to know and really enjoy the company of. We have been fortunate to sit at their table regularly and be able to get to know them. Bob, Julie, Casey and Austin invited us out to go for drinks with them tonight as it will be their last night here. We have one more full day that we are going to spend hanging around the Aguila de Osa inn. The inn provides kayaks and is right next to a beautiful beach that we haven’t spent any time at yet. Hopefully it is a sunny day tomorrow, if not, we’ll have to read a lot.

Satelite map of our ride





















































We got soaked in the rain