Big Small Journey Off on the adventure of my lifetime: 5 glorious months of sun and snow in South America, then the UK for further fun and frolicking.

My goodness, horses are amazing. They're big, strong, majestic, smart, smelly, naughty, cute, lovely, stubborn, wild, tame... lots of contradictions, just like people. I've been on the ranch 3 days now, had 2 riding lessons, and will have a practise tomorrow afternoon. And hopefully (fingers in knots!) I can ride out with the gauchos on Wednesday. I've learnt to do the basic controls, left, right, stop, walk, trot, get into a gallop, but not very good at them yet. My position on the horse is still awkward, but will work hard at that tomorrow. My bum hurts from the constant bumping up and down, but will grow some hard muscles there. The farm is a beautiful place, I've seen some of the most amazing sunrises, sunsets, and moonrises in my life. Here, because of the dust stirred up during the day, the sunsets are bright pink and orange, the sun itself hangs low and huge on the horizon just as we wrap up work at about 7pm. In the mornings, we start work at 7am, and the sun is just rising, clear, sharp and bright. In the middle of the day, from 12 to 2:30pm, we have lunch and siesta time. Today I fell asleep in the hammock under some trees. There are chickens, ducks, geese, cats and dogs running around all about. The most lovely thing is riding though. Or just patting the horses. There is a lot of work to do on the farm, bringing horses in for checkups, prep for riding, showering and cleaning horses, training, walking them to and from the fields. Most of the time we work 10 hours. Ahhhh but the food is wholesome, and plentiful. I've put on weight. Ooops. Have to feed the stallions and prize mares tomorrow morning at 5:30am. Not looking forward to it!