Writings By Location| Horsing Around in Pucón | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
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| Erin Earns a Time-Out |
It turns out my concern was misplaced, however. As soon as we turned our horses to move forward again, Erin became a victim of one of the first rules of horseback riding: avoid trees. When Pelican started to trot after the rest of us, she was distracted by something, and failed to notice the low-hanging tree branch directly ahead of her, that either Pelican failed to see, or saw as his chance for freedom at last. Either way, there was a loud sound of crashing leaves, and I quickly turned my head just in time to see Erin getting whipped in the face by a tree branch, knocking off her hat and sunglasses, and dazing her just a bit. Fortunately, the mishap caused no more than a scratch, but that just made it that much more embarassing. Rodolfo jumped off his horse and brought over his first-aid kit to do a little cleanup on Erin's face, but it was only a short matter of time before it became a bit of a joke, as Rodolfo would call out for Erin to be careful every time we passed a tree — even the ones that were only about three feet high. Even Pancho couldn't help but chuckle at this.
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| At the Top |
We continued our gradual climb up a hill, and found ourselves rewarded with spectacular views of the valley, stretching almost all the way back to Pucón. It didn't even dawn on us that the trail was getting fainter and fainter until we reached the wooden fence and barbed wire. But this wasn't about to stop us: Rodolfo hopped off again with a wire cutter, and simply snipped the wires, pulling them aside. What was this? Were we breaking into national park land? Cattle rustling? Sneaking onto a neighbor's pasture to pull a practical joke? It turns out, Rodolfo explained, that he had just purchased the extensive lot of land next to his, and he had yet to finish exploring it. So the mission for today's ride was to find out what's out there. What an uplifting thought! Suddenly, we didn't just feel like horseback riders, we felt like explorers, hacking our way through the bushes, making our own trail as we went. It made us realize how fortunate we were. This wasn't just some touristy follow-the-leader-along-the-trail sort of ride, we actually had a purpose: we had a mission, and it involved machettes.
What we didn't realize at first is that we also had a secondary mission. Rodolfo had taken a cursory ride through here the week before, and saw a huge rock that was "perfect for climbing". He wanted to find it again — we figured so he could come back here on his day off. Well, that was true...but not why we were looking for it today. That climb was meant for us.
