POPTUN - Anybody who knows Anna surely knows that she loves horses.  Horses horses horses.  When we first got together I was shocked to discover that she couldn't ride a bike.  Her completely sensible excuse - of course - was that she grew up with a horse instead of a bike.  When we visited Garry and Suzy in CA Anna was excited to see Suzy's horses.  In our travels as well, Anna got excited whenever we saw a horse in a field, someone riding a horse, or a horse pulling a carriage.  Having witnessed all of this horse related excitement, I knew of course that Anna wanted to stop seeing them and actually RIDE one - and after giving it a moment's thought I put two and two together and realized that I'd be riding one too.  Oh God.

So the whole idea of horseback riding for me is a little unsavory.  My first and last experience with riding was about 15 years ago and it was a not good one.  I remember as I approached my horse and climbed on his back he seemed to be showing a very large and intimidating - how would you say it nicely - "fondness for the female horses".  Additionally, as we began to ride I began to realize he loved to trot, at about the same time I discovered the stirrups of my saddle were too long and I couldn't stand - do the math yourself.  I was a little squeamish about trying again but at the same time determined to show Anna that I could handle it.  She, after all, learned to ride a mountain bike for me.



Fast forward to the present.  We woke up at Finca Ixobel, had breakfast, and went to the stable around 8:30.  I wiped the unpleasant memories from my mind and replaced them with romantic notions of gallopping through the jungle on a grand beast.  At the stable our horses were waiting, all saddled and ready to go.  Forgive me if I get any of the terms wrong.  I skittishly climbed on my horse, his name translates to "White Pimp", and breathed a sigh of relief at having not gotten bucked off yet.  Anna and Frederique mounted their horses and in a moment, the guide let out a shout, cracked his horse on the hind quarters and we were off!  Or at least they were.

Good ol' White Pimp didn't seem to like moving much at all, and he didn't seem so interested in going for an all day ride with some yahoo (me) on his back.  I think also he could sense - and quite enjoyed - that I didn't know what I was doing.  He didn't like to trot... I'd kick him and shout and he'd go for a few steps and then slow and walk again.  I was probably doing something wrong but couldn't figure it out.  There was a lot of mud on the trails and I guess horses don't like mud, so mine would walk around it.  Of course, we were in the woods, so 'around it' meant that my horse was actually clearing trees and brush with my body, not too pleasant but I was determined to press on.  After about an hour of riding I realized that the stirrups had my legs in a totally unfamiliar and uncomfortable bent position.  I guess you get used to it if you're a true horsemen but I felt like my knees were being twisted and torn off.

At hour two I was ready to call it a day, but we still had six hours left.  We were riding through many farms, and each time we went from one to the next we'd pass through a barbed wire fence.  I suppose it's ok if you can ride but my horse liked to drag me against the wire as we went through.  Remember that he doesn't like mud?  Well my legs don't like smashing into barbed wire and fence posts. 



Finally, after scorching in the sun for hours, crossing a dozen fields of mud, rubbing against some barbed fences, sliding through a rocky river crossing and nearly having been knocked off by low hanging tree branches we stopped for lunch at a pretty little river eddy.  I could barely stand, and after a few minutes we started finding the ticks.  There was a tick fully embedded in my ankle that I was lucky to pull off with it's head in tact.  He became fish food.  Then Anna noticed some tiny pin head sized ticks on my waist.  Turns out there were about 10 more on me, and we scraped them off.  She had some on her too which we also got rid of.  I thought of all the lime-disease scares in New England... good times.  I spent some time 'bonding' with my horse by feeding it scraps of bread and apple.  I guess I hoped I could make it like me and possibly coax it into riding on the trail for a while.

I'll quickly take you through the next four hours - tried to trot, hot sun, horse wouldn't run, more hot sun, my knees killed, my butt hurt, hard dirt road, more non-trotting, more hot sun.  I was so over riding and I desperately wanted to be back at the farm.  I felt like a man going insane - I was way behind everybody else, caught in a cycle of cursing and cussing at my horse, calling it names and berating it for being so slow and stupid.  I was tired of kicking him and trying to get him to run, I began to feel bad because maybe it's feet hurt (they had no shoes) and then I went right back to cursing it again all over.  At one point I shouted at it saying that I could walk home faster than I could ride.  I sure hope nobody could hear me.

After about 2 hours of thinking we were close to the farm my horse suddenly got some life in his legs.  He started trotting without being told.  As I was thinking 'what the hell is going on here' the other horses started to run, or canter or gallop or whatever you call it and mine actually followed!  Wow, I couldn't believe I was running!  I was so excited that for a few seconds I forgot that I had no idea what the hell I was doing or how to stay on.  In an instant my elation left me and was replaced with the fear that I was going to go hurling off to the ground and dash my brains on some rocks.  I thought 'this is it for me' just before the crazy bastard stopped running.

This sort of run-stop-run thing happened a few more times and the guide explained that the horses were excited to be close to home.  I guess he was right because they just kindof found their way back without any direction from us.  I finally got the hang of gallopping - without falling off and dying - and it actually started to be fun.  Then all of a sudden we were back at the farm.  For all the frustration and exasperation I felt all day, the whole thing kindof ended unceremoniously.  We got off our horses, thanked the guide, and went for a cold beer.  That was it.

Later on as looked back on the whole day I forgot all the bad stuff and was content with having tried it and lived.  I was excited that Anna got to ride and hoped that I didn't drag or slow the group down too much with my misbehaving animal.  As I showered up that night I felt refreshed and began to think that I would maybe like to try riding again, albeit for a much shorter time.  Oh yeah, that's about when we found the rest of the ticks.  All in all I think Anna pulled 40 tiny ticks off me and I about 20-30 off of her.  It was kindof gross.  At that point there was nothing to do but laugh... we were sore, we were tired, we were sun burned and we were absolutely covered in ticks.  We joked that we'd merely gone 'tick collecting' instead of horse back riding.  Then somehow we decided we'd do it again.