Skip to main content

The Daily Dose of Danger is back

Cora always says we have a daily dose of danger when we travel. Well, we used a week of that up yesterday. Our hostel has motorscooters you can rent really cheap. We paid $6 for two scooters for two hours. The deal is, we are in the mountains and the motorbikes (as they call them here) are a bit big for me.
Cora said ¨Which one do I get to drive?¨

So we thought it would be good for Tate to ride with me. Wrong! It was too much weight for me to handle on turns so we crashed. It was a spectacular crash too. We went into the gravel, the seat came off the bike, and I was pretty bloody after. Shaken up too. We thought we might have to quit but Steve took Tate for a spin and they were fine so we carried on. Bless Cora for jumping on the bike with me without blinking an eye even though I had just laid the bike down. We spent our two hours driving around the mountain roads and looking at amazing vistas and many coffee plantations. Not many pictures though. We only had the two hours and with my short legs stopping the bike was difficult so we just rode the whole time.
The elbow is bloody, the knee got a goose egg and dark bruise

After lunch we had a tour booked to go horseback riding and to the hot springs. We were driven out to the ranch in an open air jeep and, again, got to see some amazing vistas of the town. Everytime we have seen it though, weve been moving so no picture. I just have to keep the images in my head. Our guide was John and he spoke perfect English with no accent. He had lived in the states for a while. We really enjoyed spending the day with him.

The horseback riding was not the most beautiful we have ever done, but we did have a good time, learned a lot from John, and he even let Cora gallop a bit. John really got a kick out of the kids having such a great time.
Our horses: Gordo, Nina, Busky, and Alessandro


After the horseback riding we went to the Caldera Hot Springs in the jeep. It was a crazy road and we were happy to be in four-wheel drive. Where the road ended we had to walk down a very rocky path. It was not good for Steve. The springs were nice though. Very hot and there was a cold river next to them so we got to go from hot to cold to hot, which is so good for the muscles. The caretakes of the area have a pet spider monkey and he came to visit.




The kids had a lot of fun playing in the rapidly flowing river with rounded rocks.After an hours in the springs we headed back and a rainbow formed over one of the mounains during our drive. We were exhausted when we returned. We cannot do justice to how great this day was, crash and all.

While sitting around talking to the people at the hostel we found out that there is going to be a baseball game in David tonight. Apparently baseball is big here and the crowd is very rowdy. This should be an interesting time because it is a playoff game. We were supposed to go to Bocas del Torro today, but that´s the beauty of traveling without a schedule.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Did that monkey smoke?

Popular posts from this blog

In Costa Rica

Again, this computer will not take an SD card. However, I am drinking the best coffee I've ever had while writing this so it's mas-o-menos. (good and bad) We were only able to spend the one night in Bocas del Toro because we made reservations at a specific hotel in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica and they only let you cancel if the can rebook. Thus, for the third day in a row we were on the move. That is really exhausting so I'm glad we are in one place for at least three days now. It took us about five hours to get here from Bocas. We first had to get a water taxi to get back to mainland. They were very busy that day so we had to wait an hour for that. Then I splurged and paid for us to get a direct minibus to the border. Otherwise that would have been a taxi then two different busses to get there. Then we spent 30 minutes getting visas and stamped out of Panama. After that we walked across a rickety, rusted bridge into Costa Rica. From there another office for cus

Long hours in St.Louis

We drove to St. Louis last night and stayed at a hotel because our flight was scheduled for 8am.  We got up at 4:30am to get the 5:30 shuttle and be in the airport by 6. (International flights require a 2 hour check in ahead of time) When we got here we found out our flight to New York was canceled but they put us on a direct flight to Miami. That flight leaves at 11:50am. It's good that we don't have to do the extra NY leg, but I could have used the extra sleep.  We had a one day pass for the Admiral's Lounge for Steve and the kids are free so it was only $50 for me and we could hang in there for the extended time.  Money well spent.  The seats are comfortable, there is no noise, and the drinks and snacks are free.  A significant savings when you consider we have Tate. So, the Windmoeller Hillbillies moved in. We also have free computer use (thus, the blog post) and free "drinks" for the adults. Not one to ever let a free Bloody Mary pass me by...or two.

The real first post

O.k. That last post was really just a test as I was setting things up. Now the real, good stuff begins. Where to next? My kids and I are on our way to Ecuador for a month of Spanish language school. Steve will be joining us the middle two weeks of our adventure. I will answer each question in turn. Why spanish school? We don't know any spanish. Actually hablo Espaniol en poco. Muy poco. (The people who know spanish and are reading this are probably laughing.) Tate and I went to Honduras two years ago and I figured we would be able to get by because lots of people speak English. It is pretty much a universal language, right? Wrong! I could not function and felt very detached from the people and culture I was learning about. (The same thing happened in France but that was o.k. The French did not want to talk to me anyway.) We got separated from the fluent Spanish speaker we were with and I nearly had a meltdown. I coped by going into a Wendy's (yes, they have Wendy