We joined the party of adventurers who were on the horseback riding option of the trip. Others were on the hiking only option (we learned later this was over ten miles round trip in mud for $5 less). Our guide strongly recommended to Kathleen and I that we should pay the $2/person for rubber boots. We thought about this for a moment and figured why not?
Via shuttle bus, we took a nicely paved road up to a parking area shrouded in the drizzly fog of a cloud forest. Here we found a small herd of trusty steeds waiting.
The hiking group started out. Kathleen and I tugged on our rubber boots as a caballero herded the horses off up the trail. Uh, wait. Aren’t we to be on the horses? Well, no. A detail our guide eventually provided was that the trail from the parking area was too treacherous to travel by horse. We were to hike for a mile or better before mounting-up.Within a quarter mile, Kathleen and I realized the rubber boots were the best purchase we had made on the trip! The horse traffic coupled with the constant drizzle had created a rutted muddy slog for a trail.
Additionally, horses aren’t particular where bladder and bowel movement events occur. Add that to the mud. The rubber boots were well worth the price of rental.We slogged our way to the staging area for mounting-up on the horses.
I picked out a pony and mounted up. Kathleen was having trouble directing her horse to move on to the trail. I dismounted and broke one of the first rules of horsemanship when riding an unfamiliar horse. I didn’t hold on to the reins of my horse. I went over to Kathleen’s horse and tugged the animal to where Kathleen wanted. I then went over to my horse who instantly began walking away. With every attempt to catch the beast, the horse trotted further up the trail. For roughly a quarter mile the horse and I both trotted. I tried catching the devious equine. I finally got ahead of the horse who wheeled about and headed back down the trail, eventually running into the rest of the mounted travelers. Kathleen managed to get a hold of my horse. I promptly mounted-up. Don’t ever drop the reins of a horse you don’t know.We rode horse-back for the next couple miles at a pace most people on crutches could hold.
Our animals were creatures of habit. Horses, subjected to a daily routine for months on end will staunchly adhere to that program. They get saddled; go rider-less to a point; haul a rider from point A to point B; stand around at that point; haul a rider back down to a point; and then goi rider-less to the stable. Any deviation from that routine will require considerable brute force, a whip, or electroshock persuasion. I tried the former to no avail.Our ride was shrouded in a dense wet fog. Somewhere along the western edge of the trail was a crater 5½ miles by 6 miles and nearly a thousand feet deep. Volcano Sierra Negra. The largest active intact caldera on Earth, having provided a significant erupting in 2005. In contrast, Ngorongoro crater is 14x12 miles and nearly 2,000 feet deep; making the African volcanic formation the largest intact caldera on Earth.
We dismounted our horses and continued on up the trail. As we topped over the shoulder of the unseen crater, we started down the east side wear the environment went from damp, cool, and cloudy, to hot, dry, and sunny. Here, we hiked along a basaltic rock path discovering our rubber boots were just shy of the experience of walking barefoot on sharp stones.
Volcano Chico de Isabela erupted in 1979 complete with lava flows down to the ocean. Here we sat and absorbed the views. 
Since the eruption, time and weathering has provided little evidence of the eruption except for areas where no vegetation exists. 
Wait about a hundred years for a sprout or two.
When we returned to our horses, the fog had lifted providing a view of Sierra Negra. 
What a vast lava field in a punch bowl! Kathleen and I would have enjoyed sitting on the rim and gazing into the caldera, however, we had to go. 
A down-side of organized tours is the constant goading to get going.
Back in the saddle again, our mounts had a new found vigor. They were eager to go! This phenomenon is called being ‘barn sour’. Part of the programming in a creature of habit, such as a saddle horse, is their understanding that the sooner you get to the point where the rider gets off, the sooner you get to trot back to the stable, equating to the sooner you get the saddle taken off and no human bothers you. We nearly galloped down the trail along the rim of the now exposed crater.
Our horses suddenly stopped at a non-descript point. One of the caballeros came up and directed us to dismount as this was where we were to walk due to the treacherous trail conditions. We dismounted, and the whoosh of air that rushed past us was filling the vacuum left by the horses who nearly broke the sound barrier as they continued down trail.
Kathleen and I walked down to our waiting van which arrived back in Puerto Villamil by about 4pm. Kathleen and I showered and did laundry in the sink. This was becoming routine for us.
After a brief walk along the beach, we had dinner at the same place furnished with plastic patio furniture. A tidy meal, and then bed.
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