My Travels: 21/02/10 Funky Monkey

We stayed in Tamarindo for a few more days before heading back. Surfing wise we did very little other than going to playa Avellanas, the reef break. On one of the days we were messing around in the sea on a cloudy day. when we had to head back to the car we had to walk along the beach. By the time we got there I had severely burnt shoulders! I had put on waterproof 60 yet I managed to burn myself so that it ended up blistered. =[

Other than that it been pretty uneventful. In our surfing lesson George wanted us to start using cutbacks! Not the roundhouse kind but all the same! To me I've always thought of the cutback as a high profile move yet he wants us to start using them! WOW!

Yesterday we went to a Rodeo. The drinking had begun before we got there but none of us were drunk, tipsy yes, drunk no. At 8 we entered the stadium and got very good seats. We quickly realised you could enter the ring which Alex, Priddy, Franky, Sam and I all did. Obviously flip-flops removed! After the rider has got off his bull everyone in the ring tries to tease it and get close. Not long later two cowboys enter the ring to lasso the bull, which will normally calmly leave the ring. The bulls vary how aggressive they are; one started eating after he threw his rider off and as he walked beneath me (I was on the wall.) I could put my feet on him, the other side of things was one attacking someone standing next to the wall, which the others hadn't done.

At one point they released a bull with no rider and no warning. Alex got chased by it twice only narrowly missing it!

Right now your probably amazed that I'd managed to be in a ring with 7 bulls and not get hurt. Well think again! With 15 minutes till our taxi was coming to pick us up we were out of the ring when the 8th bull was released. All of us clambered to get back in for one last go! By this time he had rid himself of his rider and made his way to our side of the ring. I was hanging ready to drop when he moved off. In my peripheral vision I saw this fast moving 4 legged beast running away from me so jumped down.

It was a horse.

I had turned to listen to a Costa Rican.

The bull had turned around and was coming towards me with 2 tonnes of muscle.

Naturally I jumped for the wall but only made it half way before it hit me picking up my legs. It head butted me off the wall and bounced me on his head a few times before I hit the floor. At which point I scrambled underneath the bottom rung in the fence. Honestly that's the fastest I've ever moved!

Fortunately I got lucky, my left hand fingers got cut from holding onto the wall and I've got a bruise on my left thigh from the bull. All superficial damage, mainly because it happened so quickly I was relaxed which limits damage.