¡Dios mio!
Today at 9 o'clock, me, 2 Germans, a Dutch girl, a Belgian girl and two fine Ecuadorian guides departed the hostel for 7 hours of horseback riding. Considering that none of us ride but the Belgian girl, it was quite the adventure through the mountains! We stayed uphill, dodging bushes and bees for nearly three hours and it was absolutely the most beautiful place on earth. At the top, dripping with sweat but smiling wide, I turned around and stopped breathing for a moment. Mountains as far as the eye can see. It was a beautiful sunny day and the views were spectacular, with rivers and cascadas (waterfalls) and fruit trees, plus some of the most beautiful butterflies I've ever seen. It looked like a painting, my brain refused to believe it wasn't a greenscreen no matter how hard I tried to tell myself it was real. We were at an altitude of roughly 7500 feet- try hiking in that!
We broke for lunch after leaving the horses and hiking for a bit (even rapelled down a vertical incline for a minute, using some cheap yellow rope that's been tied to a tree for lord-knows-how-long), and ate right next to this sparkling waterfall. Lunch was included in the $25/person charge (yes, $25 for 7 hours), and let me just say I never anticipated a guacamole-and-cheese sandwich to taste so delicious! I might even eat them when I come home! Then it was back to the horses to take another route home. In the last half hour of the hike, when we arrived back to paved road, for some reason the horses got really competitive and they were racing, cutting each other off, and going into the ditch...with us on their backs. The people in town stared at us with bemused smiles as we galloped screaming through the streets.
Basically it was one of the coolest things I've ever done and I will never do it again. What hurts after a day on a horse, you may wonder? Well, my friend, let me share the pain; your palms and wrists hurt from holding the saddle, every muscle in your arms is stiff and weak, your inner thighs are sore from the blunt-force trauma they endured all afternoon and morning, your legs hurt from being spread so wide and then bounced for hours, your face and arms sting from the sunburn you tried to avoid by using SPF 45 sunscreen, your back feels like spaghetti from galloping, and your bladder hurts from the pee you were holding in the final half-hour run back.
And was it worth it?
Hell yes.
