Adventure at Cañon de la Vieja

June 17, 2019

Sunday

We got up bright and early to meet our bus at 7. A two-ish hour bus ride later, we made it to Cañon de la Vieja and hurriedly changed into our suits and sunscreen for our tours. Thinking there would be time to reapply sunscreen and a place to stow a small bag, I carried the communal bag through our canopy tour. This canopy tour was a lot different from the one we did 2 days ago. The lines were longer and higher up and we had more views of the river below. It also went very quickly. I thought I would have time to take pictures and then eventually make it to the front and take more pictures but after taking pictures the first round (and missing about 4 people because they sent us so quickly) I was at the back of the line and never made it back to the front. Our guides were fine, but there was very little interaction between them and us. I felt like it was just a job for most of them. At the end they gave us the option to rappel down and then rock climb back up, but I made the decision not to do it. We still had 2 more activities to do before lunch (which was at a set time) and the students would have to go one by one and climb about 20m up a hot rock wall. Plus the kids were anxious to ride horses!

We were paired up with our horses and once we were all mounted we were off! Well, at a walk and occasional trot to catch up or pass a slow horse (like Seth's). Unfortunately, I had to leave the bag with sunscreen and phones behind because we would go directly to the river for tubing. So many of us got a bit burned while on horseback. We knew it was that and not tubing because we had white spots on our knees where touching the saddle :) Very attractive. After a 30 minute ride we made it to the river and hopped on to our tubes. We had a combination of lazy floating, tube paddling, and rapids for an hour. We had a few people fall out in the rapids (heart attack for the chaperones) but everyone was ok aside from some bumps and bruises. I think I had the most fun tubing even when I would get stuck on a rock or in a spot where the current was flowing against me. After we carried our tubes up the hill, we were SO ready for lunch and a nap! The rest of the afternoon we took it easy, napping, check out the pool and it's hidden room inside the fake waterfall, the natural hot springs, and sauna. Our supper was a delicious 3 course meal with chicken soup with lime, a choice of meat (bbq ribs, chicken, fish, or beef) with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, and topped off with a melon juice and rice pudding with sprinkles. We definitely ate well there! After a quick meeting, the kids had a little party in one of the rooms and it sounded like they were having fun just bonding on their last night. Our rooms were actually 2 rooms to a little cabin and with no insulation, it was pretty easy to hear the other side :)

Monday

The kids were so tired that they all slept in despite having made plans to get up and just lay out by the pool one more time. We had a buffet breakfast, packed up, and drove the 20 minutes to the airport. Something I learned was that ground coffee is considered a powder, so it's not something that can be in your carry-on if over 300g. We had to check another bag, this time for the coffee that many people bought as souvenirs. Bummer! I wish I would have known that before buying it. I would have bought whole bean coffee (which is fine to bring in your carry-on). We are currently in the airport, about to board our flight back to Atlanta. Hopefully I will have no more stories to tell as our flights will be smooth and uneventful!

Some of the hot springs