Writings By Location| Horsing Around in Pucón | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
At last, convinced the horses weren't about to throw us — at least, not yet — we left the walking ring and hit the ol' dusty road. Although "dusty" only begins to describe it: especially now, in the dry season, the dust from the road kicks up so much, that it actually becomes hard to breathe at times. Our best hope is to make it up the hill as quickly as possible so we can move off the road and onto grassier tracks and pastures. After fifteen or twenty minutes, Rodolfo trots ahead and pulls a wire fence aside allowing us to do just that, revealing a worn path cutting through tall grass.
It isn't long before we reach a large, open pasture, and we gringos are put to our first test. "Are you ready to gallop?" he asks, and then without waiting for a real answer, he kicks his horse, and off he goes, with the three dogs immediately behind. Pian and Pelican aren't fools: they know a good time when they see it, so we don't have to really say a word before they're off and running, too.
Now, I'll be the first to say that riding a galloping horse looks awfully easy when you're watching it. And the one or two times I'd done it before, I found it quite exhilarating, until I got yelled at for it. My lesson for today, however, was that riding with an English saddle (which is what I've had before) is very different from riding with a Western saddle (as I was doing today). With every lunge Pian took, I found my foot sliding out of the stirrup just a little bit more. Before he'd gone more than fifty meters or so, I felt my butt beginning to slide off his back, as well. I went from being excited to holding on for dear life, and hoping that Pancho was far enough behind us that he wouldn't end up trampling me when I went careening through the air. And, mind you, Pian has more than a little bit of spunk: in fact, I also discovered that the one thing he hates more than anything else is being told to stop running.
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| The Chase |
Our horses finally arrived at the distant end of the pasture, on top of a small hill, without much help from us. We paused for a short rest, which I suspect was more for us than the horses. It certainly wasn't for the dogs, who found a rabbit, and now set out chasing the little critter all around the pasture at top speed for a good five minutes. (They still failed to catch him, the wusses.) Meanwhile, Rodolfo looked us over, and decided we were good riders, and tough enough to handle the galloping. I gave my best hearty chuckle and manly-man grin, while calculating in the back of my mind the velocity at which I'd be hitting the ground next time we tried this, and how many bones I'd break.
