Bouncing off the saddle

I had never gone horseback riding before…not until I met Vanessa (pronounced Banezza), the horse presented to me on our last morning in La Fortuna.

Before leaving the volcano town, we took a three-hour, round-trip horseback ride to La Fortuna Waterfall. I’m unsure of how intense horseback riding lessons are in the states, but in La Fortuna it was simple: Hold the reins with one hand. Pull back at the reins to make the horse stop, or to the side to guide the horse left or right. “Easy,” the guide said, “now you are natural cowboys and cowgirls.”

We rode to the waterfall one hour each way, passing through open pastures, enclosed jungle trails and small creeks. Our horses slushed through puddles, kicking the thick mud all the way up to our shirts. The horses recognize kissing noises as a signal to pickup speed, and when our guide taught us this signal during the brief instruction session, my mind responded with a yea right, señor. I’m going to stick with a leisurely trot.

But, señor had other plans for us, as he kiss kiss-ed on several occasions during our excursion, causing all 10 horses to pick up a galloping speed. So, now we have learned to ride galloping horses. And, our groins have the pain to prove it.

When we arrived at La Fortuna waterfall, we stripped off our long pants and sneakers, then walked carefully in our bathing suits and bare feet down the large slippery rocks to the base of the 200-foot falls. The water nearly froze our blood still, but the picturesque green moss and hanging vines surrounding the falls distracted the mind with wonder and beauty. The current was stronger than we expected and our screams nearly inaudible to the powerful sound of the crashing cascade. So, we floated in the pool, splashing around the numbing water with big smiles and eyes constantly upward at the surrounding canyon above.

On our return ride, the clouds finally parted from two days of overcast skies, and we saw this top of Arenal Volcano. While currently in its resting phase, the 5,437-foot mountain has remained the country’s most active volcano for the past 43 years. I wanted more than anything to get a quick glimpse of the entire structure before leaving town, and our horses galloped us past it at the most perfect time. Fewer than 10 minutes later, the clouds covered its tip again.

Vanessa was a competitive lady and squeezed her way to the front of the pack whenever possible. This included the times we should have been trotting single file through the narrow, rocky trails, and I had to pull the reins reminding her to “woah, chica!” and wait her turn. She was a real go-getter, that Vanessa, and I respected her for it.

The ride from La Fortuna to Monteverde was no smoother that the morning we spent on horseback. There is no direct route between the two towns, so we arranged for a taxi-boat-taxi transport, which took us door-to-door by two, one-hour shuttle rides and one 30-minute boat ride over Lake Arenal. The lake is the second largest in Central America and boasted a mountainous shoreline of densely packed trees and bright green pastures.

The mountain roads were entirely unpaved, winding uphill or downhill, but always winding. When not curving through small towns, the gravel wound the mountainside – oftentimes with no guardrail or shoulder – presenting open landscapes of bright green rolling hills.

We have now made it to the rainforest of Monteverde. Like La Fortuna, we will spend two days here enjoying new adventures and the taste of another Costa Rican town.