Day 55 03.09.15
We got up and I felt very well rested. What a delight, it was definitely time for that! We dropped off our entire luggage with a fellow traveller in order for him to chuck our luggage onto the bus when it came to the hotel while we were out horseback riding.
We got a lift into town and went straight onto a safari van accompanied by Scooter, the company’s dog that was going to accompany us everywhere.
We drove a short while and eventually got to the ranch. After a short introduction about the horses and how they would behave, we were assigned each horse. I got Pepino. I was excited as he had been described fondly by the water rafting guide and as well by the horse guide. Pepino is an occasional anxious horse that wants to run. This played exactly into my desire for cantering and galloping cards. Apparently I could take him off from the group too and go galloping with him.
We headed out from where the horses were tied up and got up to a small gate. After passing it we got to catch a glimpse of the wonderful scenery. Everywhere you looked were green hills, little trees and a lot of space for cantering, but leaving enough “forest” to make the ride interesting. When the guide told me (right after the gate) that I could take Pepino cantering up the mountain, I didn’t hesitate and did just that. At the top the view was even better. You could literally see the entire valley, it was beautiful!
I trotted back to the foot of the mountain and caught up with the group. This was definitely a new experience of being able to take off from the group and go at my own pace.
We passed some wonderful riding tracks. Going through thick bushes, wading through mud, going up mountains where we were walking through ridges and therefore having to keep our legs up to avoid scraping them on the sides, trotting, cantering and pushing the “slower” horses of the group forward to catch up with the rest of the gang.
The horses were great, don’t get me wrong, and even the “grandpa horse” which definitely wasn’t one with its 12 years, called Colorado was keeping up, maybe a little slower than the rest but keeping up. Colorados slow pace had of course nothing to with its rider – absolutely nothing :). He just needed some more forceful and “enthusiastic” riding, which is difficult for someone who hadn’t really ridden before. But even he managed well.
After a wonderful gallop up a hill, we stopped for a little photo session. After that we had a couple more opportunities for cantering and even galloping as we made our way back to the ranch.
Back there we gave all the horses some treats for their efforts. We gave them bananas something I had never heard of before. We broke them in half and handed them to the horses with their peel and everything. They loved it and immediately munched away on them. I think as soon as the word banana was even just mentioned we had the united attention of all horses, at least their ears gave them away.
After that we headed back to town, waiting to be picked up by the rest of the group and their van. We had some time to kill and so I enjoyed some pizza. It was that good, that I had to have another slice. (A good idea, seeing as we didn’t know when we would be getting to Santa Catalina.) Eventually the others came and we headed out towards Santa Catalina.
As we were approaching the town, we noticed that there was absolutely no light in any of the houses. There were also no streetlights. The storm that had been going on from 16:00 onwards had killed the main power supply.
We got to the hotel and didn’t quite grasp that concept until we got to our rooms. No lights (apart from an emergency light), no air conditioning or fan, no wifi and the worst of all – not hot showers.
Without a shower we headed off to go eat at a restaurant called Biancas. We were dropped off by our wonderful hotel owner, and sat around a table with only candlelight to help us read the menu. I then realised that we have gotten used to so many things powered by electricity, such as fridges. Thankfully Bianca had some ice left and so the rum cokes were drinkable.
I had a mixed ceviche – which was absolutely delicious. Bianca had added a maracuja spicy sauce to go with it and that just made it special. For a main I had fish with coconut rice, which unfortunately couldn’t keep up with the ceviche.
We walked back home in the dark, seeing as the power had not yet reappeared. It was very hot without a fan and as soon as the power came back on at about 2 o’clock in the morning we turned the fan up.
