La cabalgata
Today I finished my two week Spanish course. I felt like I was finishing primary school and off to summer vacations!
Then I went to a horse riding trip with a BBQ overlooking the valley with Santiago and the neighbouring mountains. The views were great and the horses were nice, however the organization of the trip was a bit lacking. Firstly, no riding helmets were supplied, but I guess let's do it Gaucho style, wearing a straw hat... When we arrived at the starting point, the guides saddled everyone up without a word of welcome or basic horse riding instructions and yiiihaaa! we were off. It's not like we were galloping through the Patagonian pampas but still... I saw many people being really stressed and have a small panic attack every time their horse sped up to a trot. I was thanking my fortune that while in the US I took a few lessons and I knew how to start/stop/steer/slow down my horse (or at least attempt to, they don't always listen if they think you're not hip enough for them :-P). Thanks to the super pro riding skills that I acquired during my whole 3 hours of riding classes, I managed to avoid the super thorny bushes that were growing along the path up to the BBQ spot - I saw multiple people bring dragged right through them by their horses, ouch! I felt really proud of myself, and almost like I could gallop away from this bunch of novices with ease... ;) Anyway, fortunately nobody got hurt, and I learned that horses can see in the dark much better than humans can, hence we were able to descent without any artificial lights no problem. Who knew!
Then I went to a horse riding trip with a BBQ overlooking the valley with Santiago and the neighbouring mountains. The views were great and the horses were nice, however the organization of the trip was a bit lacking. Firstly, no riding helmets were supplied, but I guess let's do it Gaucho style, wearing a straw hat... When we arrived at the starting point, the guides saddled everyone up without a word of welcome or basic horse riding instructions and yiiihaaa! we were off. It's not like we were galloping through the Patagonian pampas but still... I saw many people being really stressed and have a small panic attack every time their horse sped up to a trot. I was thanking my fortune that while in the US I took a few lessons and I knew how to start/stop/steer/slow down my horse (or at least attempt to, they don't always listen if they think you're not hip enough for them :-P). Thanks to the super pro riding skills that I acquired during my whole 3 hours of riding classes, I managed to avoid the super thorny bushes that were growing along the path up to the BBQ spot - I saw multiple people bring dragged right through them by their horses, ouch! I felt really proud of myself, and almost like I could gallop away from this bunch of novices with ease... ;) Anyway, fortunately nobody got hurt, and I learned that horses can see in the dark much better than humans can, hence we were able to descent without any artificial lights no problem. Who knew!
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