Day 9 - Hiking and Horsing

We started the day back out at the Cloud Forest Reserve doing a hike around the entire perimeter of the reserve.  This 4-mile hike gives you the opportunity to get up on the Central America Continental divide and on clear days you can see the Pacific coast from here.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that "cloud" forests don't have many clear days.  Regardless, it was a beautiful day for a hike and disclosed even more of the beauties of the reserve to us.

After the hike we met a couple from Idaho who were spending 3 months down here and had a lot of insight into the country and it's culture from a 2 month visit several years ago. We got into talking about Costa Rica and he pointed out that Spain had largely "settled" most of Central America and had ruled the region for upwards of 500 years.  However when they got to Costa Rica they found an area largely void of any meaningful agriculture purposes with no natural crops or animals that interested them.  As such, the Costa Rican's were largely left on there own during the Spanish colonization of other parts of central America.  His contention was that this led the Costa Rican people to have such a strong sense of self-identity, pride of there historical and cultural background, and ready acceptance of foreign interest in there country.  While I haven't researched it on my own, I will say that the hypothesis goes a long way in explaining the overall joy we've experienced in being able to share this time with the Costa Rican people.

Along those same lines, we've encountered several unique occurrences here that made us take particular notice of how friendly this country is to it's tourists.  The first was back in Tamarindo where we went to dinner one night to a restaurant that we'd found on "tripadvisor".  After we got there we found out the place didn't take credit cards and we had no cash on us.  After we'd already ordered a bottle of wine but found the notification that it was cash only we told the waitress not to uncork the bottle because we didn't have enough cash on us.  She told us to go ahead and enjoy our dinner and leave the necessary cash with our hotel receptionist the following morning and they would send somebody by to pick it up.  Other than our word they required no verification of who we were or where we were staying but simply accepted that we were good for it.  I'm thinking Tina's good looks goes a long way in helping us pull that off but I was still shocked that they didn't ask for a passport, drivers license, or anything else as proof that we were telling them the truth.

Then again today we went horseback riding this afternoon (note ... precursor of what pictures are yet to come) and when we got there we found out they didn't take credit cards and we were $30 dollars short on a $70 bill.  They told us to go ahead and enjoy the ride, come back later on that evening or even tomorrow morning and they would be perfectly fine with that.  Again, perhaps it's just because I have a great looking wife, but we were both stricken with the level of trust these people afforded us.  Overall it goes a long way in explaining why people talk so much about enjoying the Costa Rican people.  The country has an incredible diversity of places to share and the people who live here are ready to bend over backwards to share it with you.

Now back to the hike around the reserve.

That Beautiful Wildlife Again

Looking Down Towards the Pacific Ocean

Up On The Continental Divide

The Well Maintained Trails of Monteverde Cloud Reserve

A Big Old Tree Root Growing Over the Trail

A Beautiful Water Fall

As we were getting ready to leave a man walked up with 2 really good looking and very friendly dogs.  One always has to take pictures of dogs.  :)

 

Towards late afternoon we arrived at the location to go horseback riding.  I guess you have to always take pics of cats too.  The horses in this area look extremely healthy and active.

The guide did actually let people run there horses which would rarely happen in the states.  I never got comfortable beyond a gallop but Tina got hers up to a full run.

Stylin' In Our Goofy Looking Helmets

A Beautiful Sunset at the End of the Ride

 So today as I'm writing this we're getting ready to pack up and head down towards the Caribbean Coast.  It's estimated at a 5 hour drive but the first 30 miles are over these awful bumpy rocky dusty roads.  Oh joy!  Until the next post ...

Adios Amigos!