My first real horse riding in ten years turned out to be quite an adventure. The clean mountain air refreshing the lungs and the spectacular views nourishing the soul, while my body was bumped and bruised and scratched for ten hours through jungles and up and down mountains.
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| Our guide Miro on Marijuano |
At day-break our local guide Miro knocked on the door, chipper with horses in hand. While we ate our hearty hot breakfast of beans and eggs, the horses were prepared, and la mama packed our lunch.
The local horses are small and slight, with their manes cut short and ear hair neatly trimmed. Only the males are used for serious riding as they have the strength needed for trekking the mountains. We were riding beautiful light duns, mine a stallion named Horizonte, and Alex a gelding named Rambo. The guide rode a white dapple named Marijuano (who was not as placid as his name might suggest).
We headed down the only street of Cestillal to leave town, being greeted by every person, staring at the blond gringa on a horse (certainly the first Aussie in their small isolated town). We started the big climb up the first mountain, passing farm houses and families that became poorer the higher we climbed. We left the road and entered the jungle, crossing waterfalls, following the river bed through narrow gorges with colourful butterflies fluttering around. We exited the trees at the top of a mountain, to our first lovely view of the Antioquian mountains, peaks still obscured by mist. We rested while Miro pointed out our destination on the mountain ahead.
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| First rest stop |
We descended down the steep grass slope, following narrow muddy paths clinging precariously to the side of the mountain. My confidence in Horizonte grew as the tough little horse plodded down and down, keeping us upright and moving forward despite the stumbles and rough terrain through the local coffee farms, and eventually we trudged into the pueblito of Juntas de Uramita, the hometown of our guide. We took our morning coffee with a tiny silent brother of Miro, and while the horses were watered and fed we were given the tour of the one-street town, with frequent pauses to greet the locals. The recent improvements to the church were shown to us with pride, along with the urbanizacion, a cluster of town houses built to replace a number of houses lost in a flood and landslide in 2007.
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Above us we could see our destination of Buena Vista, and after crossing the infamous river we quickly turned off the road onto a steep winding track. The mercury rose and the horses sweated and panted through the twists and turns. A few times we met traffic of the equine sort; a mother with a toddler and a mule loaded with bags, a teenage girl with music playing from a speaker strapped to the saddle, the only way for those living in the mountians to get to town was by the horse track.
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Buena Vista, a cluster of houses on a steep ridge, was indeed a beautiful view over the river valleys and out to the mountains all around. We ate our lunch (beans, platano and eggs safely wrapped in leaves for the journey) on the verandah of a farm house, while a woman thrashed a bag of corn with a stick to remove the kernels, and the kids played with the kittens, dogs and chickens. We watched dark clouds quickly approach from the east, hiding the mountains and pelting huge drops of rain. The corn was quickly dragged inside, the dogs ran inside and under chairs to escape the thunder, and I was prompted to move from my seat as the mother showed us the patched hole in the wall behind me where lightining often hits the house. We sheltered with wet shivering chickens while the small kids busied themselves mopping the verandah and chanelling rainwater into the tank with pipes.
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| Buena Vista |
After the storm has cleared be began the descent from Buena Vista down the other side of the mountain, my knees screaming and every pounded muscle aching. For the steepest muddiest patches we dismounted and led the horses down, crossing another rapidly coursing river before starting the final ascent back up the village. First a patch of jungle where it was so overgrown I couldn't see the path (but hoped the horse could), and Horizonte wanting to lead the pack charging through the trees with no regard for his passenger getting slapped by branches and shredded by blackberry bushes. Our guide came to my rescue with his machete and cleared our path until we reached the grassy slopes. The poor horses worked hard in the mud to carry us to the top, and we were all happy to reach the road at the top, take a rest and look back to the mountain where we had just come from, which now seemed very far away.
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| The view back to Buena Vista |
Reaching the road I was tired and sore and the village seemed just around the corner. After much discussion between the men I was told that there was only one more tricky part. This was an access road to the villages at the top of the mountain, but cars no longer used it because there was a large landslide that had swallowed part of the road. In this section we would need to dismount and go one by one, letting the horses make their own way across. The steep mountains are geologically unstable and there are often landslides here, the deep brown scars visible cutting through the lush jungle.
Our guide took his horse across first and we dismounted and let Horizonte and Rambo take the path. Horizonte quickly became scared of the narrow path and headed down through the rocky debris. We caught Rambo before he could follow, but no amount of shouting and calling could stop a scared horse on a downhill run. Miro quickly tied his horse and gave chase, finally catching poor Horizonte and riding him back up through the forest.
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| Taking the horses across the landslide |
After that little adventure I was assured the village was only another twenty minutes ride, an hour later it was still twenty minutes and I had to get out of the saddle and walk most of the way back, searching for guavas to feed Horizonte...
Two days later I am still sore, picking prickles out of my hands, and can't feel a part of my foot, but almost ready to get back in the saddle.
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