horseback riding, badly

It seemed so simple. Get on a horse and ride for an hour up a hill to get to where the zipline starts. Yow! I had some vague idea that you have to hold on to a horse with your thighs. I tried, lord I tried. But my thighs were weak and my horse was bouncy. Sure, other people had horses that just plodded along, happily following some other plodding horse. Mine was annoyed that he (she?) wasn't at the front and he kept trying to push past the others to GET to the front. When we came to a more open area, he veered off the path and took off running. Well, probably just a canter or something but it felt like a full gallop to me. I bounced all over the place, desperately trying to squeeze his sides with my thighs, and hold on to the horn on the saddle, while pulling back on the reins with my other hand. He did not like me trying to stop him. I could tell he was very annoyed to have me on his back. I wish someone had a video camera because I KNOW I bounced all over the place like a rag doll and looked absolutely ridiculous! Brianna was the same - at first the two of us laughed so hard we couldn't hold on, but then it just went on forever, so the humor was over. Others went past us, in perfect horsemanship form: Jenna, Claudia, Ian, Katie, Alex. Damn them!

After the zipline, we were to ride the horses back down the hill. I opted for a ride in the trailer pulled by a tractor. While I wasn't falling off a horse any longer, I was bounced JUST as much as this trailer hopped and skipped over a very rocky dirt path that wasn't actually appropriate for a trailer. No relief until it was all over and we got back on the bus. The best part was that the bus took us into La Fortuna and we had hamburgers! Then there was a terrific rainfall, the only rain of our 8-day stay, and after that we went on to the hot springs.