Thursday January 27, 2005

I am getting a little tired of school – probably because Mark is now here I just want to play! We have learned so much and it is all just kind of floating around in my head. We have learned so much grammar that I think it is going to take a while of additional review to digest it all. I plan to continue studying with the kids and we hope to come back each year to improve.

After class today, Daddy was waiting in the CPI office for us. He had quite and adventure finding an Internet café and ended up walking pretty far. We had lunch at the school. It was some kind of a stew with rice and beans. It was really tasty and ended up costing less than $2. We went to the bank and then had plans to do horseback riding at 2:30 PM.

Click here for photos of Flamingo Beach Horseback Riding

Our horseback guide showed up with four horses plus his own, which looked more like a donkey. This turned out to be one of the best experiences of the trip. We all mounted our horses – Grayson somehow was given the largest horse even though he had never ridden before! I guess he turned out to be one of the more gentle horses. We walked the horses up the road into the town of Flamingo and down the road that paralleled the beach -- then up a pretty big mountain. It was a little harrowing because it was a narrow road and cars were coming along fairly frequently. I was mainly nervous for the kids. We rode up the mountain and down through a beautiful valley. The views were stunning. We rode down through some beautiful land that looked like an orchard down to Playa Conchal which is one of the prettiest beaches. We walked the horses on the beach for a while and it was surreal - white sand, gorgeous blue water, and only a few people. Because it was so sparsely populated, our guide allowed us to run our horses. It was both terrifying and exhilarating. To see Darby and Grayson in front of me bouncing up and down on their horses as inexperienced as they are, while their horses galloped at full speed was the terrifying part. It was so exhilarating, though, to feel the wind on my face and take in all the wonderful sights, smells, and sounds.

By 1.5 hours into the ride our hind quarters were starting to ache and we headed back knowing we would all be walking bow-legged the next day. All in all, it was a two hour tour and it was fantastic! Once back at the villa we took a swim and then grabbed dinner at the café before turning in exhausted.

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