"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in
its net of wonder forever."—Jacques Cousteau

Jan. 29 - Our Horseback Adventure

“If you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.” —Ecclesiastes 11:4

We enjoyed the Finca Amstad Lodge, breakfast and dinner were included and we sat in their outdoor kitchen with the other guests. We've met couples from Spain, France, Germany and Belgium, it's been fun trying to communicate and finding out where and what everyone was doing. 

It rained all night, so we decided to wait a day before hiking the Rio Celeste. Instead we decided to ride horses. Just getting to where the horses were was an adventure. The main roads in Costa Rica are pretty good, but the back roads in some areas are just a little better than driving in a river bottom. It took us 35 minutes to travel the 3 ½ miles to the entrance of Tenorio Volcano National Park (where we'll go tomorrow to hike). Wilson's house, where we were meeting for horseback riding, was another mile or two down the road. Luckily the road improved somewhat after the park.

Believe it or not...this isn't the worst part of the road. Some places had large boulders in the middle of the road and others had huge potholes.
The last time we rode horses was on a friend's ranch close to Rockport. We rode through the pasture, a nice flat pasture. This time we rode down steep roads...much of which only an ATV could maneuver. We were hoping to get to enjoy the wonderful views, see a few monkeys, toucans and sloths, but the rain returned and made it a little difficult to enjoy the ride. About 45 minutes into the ride and facing a steep, slippery embankment...we turned around and went back to the house.
The muddy, slippery trail
This picture isn't very good, but it shows part of the road where we decided to turn around. Can you see how steep it is?
Since we cut our ride short, Wilson's wife gave us an informative tour of their sugarcane field and showed us how they make sugarcane honey (syrup). She also taught me how to make a tasty dessert, but I can't remember the name of it. The afternoon didn't go quite as we were expecting, but it was still a lot of fun.

Jenny cutting sugarcane
Squeezing the water out of the sugarcane
Making a little treat
Dessert and fresh sugarcane juice 

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