A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To...

Do you have a funny travel story? Here's one of mine...

Hubby and I decided to surprise our friend for his 60th birthday by joining him and his wife on a sail boat cruise in Costa Rica. The boys decided they were going to go scuba diving and I decided to do some horse back riding.

There were about 15 in our group, not including the guides (none of whom spoke English). A few of us knew how to ride and there were 2 teenagers in the group. Now mind you, we are riding in to the middle of the jungle...very narrow paths with steep inclines. So, I decided to let folks know how to properly ride their horse up and down these paths. After about an hour's ride, we finally come to a beautiful beach area for photo ops.

Now it's time to return to the boat. I go to saddle up and as I have my foot in the stirrup and to go mount my horse, he decides to pull away. Ok, I reset myself to mount again. This time, Mr. Horse decides to pull away so hard, that I come crashing down on my ankle and I hear a snap. OMG, I just broke my ankle! I can't ride...although someone suggested throwing me across the saddle and getting me back that way. The group has to return to the starting point in order to get word to the crew that I'm injured. Two ladies decided to keep me company until such time that help arrived (Candy and Ann).

After waiting for about 2 hours, help finally shows up. Yay, right??? The doctor from the boat was about 5'0, female and she had 10 big burly guys with her. So they load me up on to a hand-carried stretcher (which has built-in safety straps). Remember I said we were in the middle of the jungle? So we're walking along, one of the guys hits my foot and I screamed in pain. We walking and then, they drop me! Okay, I realize the terrain is extremely rough, but please. So we're continuing and can you believe it...they drop me again! I asked if they've ever done this type of rescue and they said yes. I asked them to be a little more careful. We continue and (can you guess), they drop me again. The next thing out of my mouth was..."With A Real Person???" They load me on to the little boat to take us back to the sail boat. There are only 4 decks on this sail boat, and no elevators.

Meanwhile...hubby has no idea of what's going on. Candy took my cabin key to open the door so they could get me into the cabin. Hubby's just getting out of his swim trunks (can you see where this is going?) and he hears the key in the door. So he turns to face the door in all his glory and as the door opens, he says, "Hi Honey", only to see an unfamiliar female standing in the doorway. Candy threw the key at him, said, your wife is being brought aboard on a stretcher and ran! Candy told me the look on his face was priceless.

Moral of the story...make sure you know who's on the other side of that door!

I'm glad you can find humor in that story...the part about your DH is very funny!! How is your ankle?

As it turned out, the ankle wasn't broken, just sprained down to the bone. Made for an interesting time going through security at the airport though. I couldn't walk, they gave me a wheel chair...and boy, did I get patted down! Places I didn't even I know I had!