Close Encounters of the Escorpion Kind & Why not to Shout "Hi Ho Silver" to a Horse.

¡Saludos!

Today is my last day in Playa de Flamingo, next stop is the surfing beach of Jaco. In an omen, I had just walked out the front door of my hotel room when I noticed a big brown spot on my right shorts. I looked for a second, and then I recognized it was a brown scorpion, an inch and a half in size, resting on my thigh (I think he must have been hiding in a pile of my clothes). In a sign of how I think my stress response has been altered by this trip, I didn't, uh, add a second spot, but rather calmly got the Nat. Geo., lifted up the exposed part of my leg, and flicked my arachnoid friend off with the magazine. At which he promptly took refuge in my black colored sandals, so I had to flick him off again.

Since my quadraciclo aventura of last, I have since moved on to riding quadrapeds. On Sunday, I went horse back riding for the first time, and let's just say I still have bruises on my “rompa.” The guide taught more by the do it and try to survive method. He showed the basic way to handle the reins, and get on the horse, brake the horse, and the rest I had to ask some of my amigos.

At one point, galloping on the beach, I decided to floor the accelerator on my grayish-white horse Condor, shouting something like “Geddy-up” at the top of my lungs. Geddy-up, indeed, my right foot was about to fall out the stirups as I passed everybody elses' horses with a cloud of dust. I had to brake pretty quick. The guide had told some of my friends that point worriedly, “Digale a su amigo, ¡despacio! ¡despacio!” It was a lot of fun, but next time I got to make sure the saddle sits right...