Turu Ba Ri

My latest tour was a trip to a "Adventure Park" which is the Costa Rican equivalent of an amusement park. It's a mere hour outside of San Jose and they have several activities you can engage in, Nature Walk, Canopy Tour, Horseback Riding, and Superman Cable. The Superman cable is an insane version of the Canopy tour. Imagine being strapped to the cable on your back and shot down the cable at 50 miles an hour. I didn't do that one. We are given the choice of 2 activities and I opted for the nature walk and horseback riding.

In order to get down to the nature walk you have to take the "Rainforest Aerial Tram"which is a gondola ride that gives you stunning views of the forest below. As we were going down on the tram on eagles were flying around the tram and one of them buzzed the tram. It was a beautiful view (photos are above my post).

The nature walk was fairly interesting but not nearly as fascinating as Manual Antonio. I did see two Coatis and they have a couple of Monkeys you can meet. I do need to make a quick correction to my earlier posts... The monkeys that I called "Spider Monkeys" are in fact White Faced Capuchins. Apparently when someone pointed the monkeys out to me I missed them saying "I call them Spider Monkeys because I can never remember their real names". Oh Well I think from the Cow/Ox incident in India we have already established that Taxonomy is not my strong suit.

We did see a lovely Butterfly Garden while on the walk but the Orchid gardens and bromeliads were a bit disappointing as neither were in bloom. The crocodiles and iguanas brightened up the walk though because they are going in the mating season so we saw some lizard courtship in action. After the walk they fed us a very nice buffet lunch that really is a couple of steps above the usual "tour" fare.

After the nature tour and lunch it was time to head back up for my horsebackriding. I have never ridden a horse before so I was excited to try this out. There was quite a large group for the horseback riding. Most of the group was a large Costa Rican family with several kids. I, of course am the only green horn in the group. I managed to mount my horse (Lucero) with only minimal difficulty. I got up, facing the right direction the first time. When the horses started down the trail I was a little nervous at first, until I got used to the rhythm and became comfortable with controlling the horse. After the first few minutes I noticed that my horse as a bit on the SLOOOOW side. It's kind of embarassing when you are being passed on the trail by 10 year old kids. After all the other horses passed me I realized my horse was more like a Pinto (the car) than a Pinto (the horse). Despite the embarassment of being the last horse in the posse it was a fun ride. We climbed up to the top of a ridge where we had the most glorious views of the mountains around us. I will say that being the last horse has it's advantage I had more time to look at the views.

All my life I have been reading books where the charecters ride horses all day. I have a much greater appreciation for all those Cowboys and Knights in all my books. I felt especially close the next day... I had all sorts of sympathy whenever I sat down. After the horseback riding we were loaded back into the bus for the trip home. It was a fun trip and would be a great place for a family with kids.