Nov 4- Time to put butts on horses

No howler monkeys this morning, so slept until 7 or so.

Yesterday while we were at the Blue Banana Hotel, we booked a 2.5hr horseback ride, where they take you along the beach and in the jungle a bit. The tours are not cheap here, we are in a tourist town so it’s the same as everywhere else we have been. It was $75us a person, but I was really wanting to do it a few times while we are here. Jay is a good enough sport to do it with me, we have done it a few times on vacations. We booked with Caribe Horse, which had good reviews on trip advisor and it was just us with our guide for the afternoon ride.
We decided to have a quiet morning in our treehouse and make some pasta for lunch, then head into town to catch our ride to the stables. Since I have only a few pics from today, here are more of the house;

 

See the toucan up there?!

We called a taxi around 1:15 for a pickup, and headed to the hotel. We were getting picked up around 2pm for the stables. It was a 10 minute ride to Caribe Horse, and our guide Jimmy had our horses tacked and ready to go. I only took one pic of Jay on his horse when we stopped, I didn’t want to drop my phone on the trail. I was trying to figure out the GoPro knockoff camera in the morning and get it on the selfie stick thingy, but I didn’t have a screwdriver to change the mount. SO UNPREPARED

As it turns out, you don’t need a screwdriver to change mounts for the cameras, it just looked that way to me. Totally could have used the camera on the ride and I would have had more than one photo. Sorry guys, I effed that up

It was a bumpy road out of the stables, all rocks and potholes. Just as rough on a horse as it was in a car. These are trail horses, they know the route for the most part, you just have to help them a little bit and watch your head for trees. We did about an hour ride, the jungle/beach are parallel to each other, so we went back and forth between them. It was a busy beach day as it was Sunday, so we didn’t take them as far as he usually does as it was too crowded. We left the horses in the bush to snack and wandered to a nearby hotel/bar for a few cervezas. After about a half hour break, we headed back as it was getting dark and looking like rain was rolling in. My horse led the way back as he is slow and if he is the last one in the line then he will lag. He definately had more pep in the front!

Instead of getting dropped back off at the hotel, we just went into town as it was almost 5:00 and we were hungry. We decided to check out Mopri for some seafood and more cerveza;). Jay ordered the seafood for 1, a mix of clams/mussels/octopus/shrimp/fish/yuck and some rice with caribbean sauce. I wanted more shrimp, I had mine in garlic butter with rice on the side ($18 or so each?) You definately pay more when you are right in the tourist spots; head outside of town a bit to find the cheaper sodas.

We were at the restaurant for a half hour when it started pouring, so after dinner we flagged down a tuk-tuk to take us back to our little oasis in the jungle. It’s a riot trying to tell different cabbies where to take us everytime we want to go home. A house with no address or street name, we try to describe signs in the area and we always get a look of confusion from them. Jayr and his girlfriend showed up maybe 15 minutes after we got back, to bring me the screwdriver that I later discovered I didn’t need lol. I was already chilling in the hammock with my laptop when they arrived to see what we were up to and how we were enjoying it. We love the serenity of his place but how you are close enough to the action of Puerto Viejo if you wanted. He said we could buy this place for $160,000……SOLD!!! Can you imagine….I could do this everyday……
They stayed for a beer and then and we continued to work a bit longer, I jumped back in the hammock to listen to the jungle while I tapped away. It’s amazing how the jungle shifts from day to night…..all the birds/monkeys slowly fade away and the crickets/frogs/bats/geckos start up….I need this soundtrack at home….OR we just move here.

SORRY EVERYONE, SEE YOU NEVER!