I stayed in Bagaces this weekend. On Saturday I was invited to go horseback riding. I have never been on a horse before, so I wanted to try it out. Emer, who has a company in Bagaces, had two of her friends visiting from England who were going to try it as well. Jessica and Lydia, one of the girls who follows the monkeys, also came. The owner of the company I work for has a number of horses at his ranch and kindly allowed us to use them. I got a nice little horse who was very easy to handle and was really fast when he wanted to run.

Everything went well at first as we made it to the edge of town where we stopped at a restaurant to have lunch. However, as we were waiting for our food, Emer's horse started to panic for some reason and started pulling out the fence posts. Emer went to calm down the horse but when she was tying it up again it panicked again and gave her a serious rope burn. Eventually the horse was calmed and Emer got some treatment but she wasn't able to ride any more so we headed back. We spent the rest of the afternoon riding around the farm and I enjoyed the thrill of racing around on a horse. However I did mange to lose my hat in the process. It was blown off after my first gallop and I figured I would find it later, but when I went back to look for it, all I could see was endless cow patties that all looked exactly like my hat.

In the evening we went to the local hot springs which were only a half hour drive up the mountain from Bagaces. It is a local favorite because it has a good restaurant and they let you bring your own beer. There were many different pools with both hot and cold spring water, but since the air was quite cool in the mountains we headed for the hot ones. They were very nice and ten times cheaper than the ones in the more tourist heavy Arenal area. After the hot springs we spent the rest of the night in the local dance bar.

The next morning I was walking through Bagaces and missing my hat when somebody called me over from one of the houses. I went over and was surprised to see the ranch's night watchman holding my hat. Apparently the guard dogs found it because it must have smelled suspicious to them. I guess my hat is also able to magically return to me in addition to all the other special powers it has.

The build up to the World Cup is in full swing. TV is broadcasting all the pre-World Cup friendly games, not only for Costa Rica, but also for all the other teams they will face. The first game they play is the opening match of the World Cup against the host Germany next Friday and is greatly anticipated. They also play against Poland and Ecuador. Apparently they have a fairly good chance to advance to the next round, however their team has looked pretty bad in the friendly matches.