alex chiang: web 6.0

Hola,

Recently, Cara and I spent two days in Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid country, on horseback. Never having ridden a horse (other than pony rides) before, it was somewhat of an experience.

Horses are big and they run fast. They also have minds of their own, and so when they get going, really, your wishes are of no particular consequence.

One last thing — the ride is bouncy as hell.

So anyhow, we set off with saddlebags packed and our 14 year old guide, and thus began two straight days of bouncing on my poor ass.

The scenery was grand, and very reminiscent of the western United States. Lots of wide open spaces, rocks colored deep hues of reds, browns, and whites, and us, bouncing along on big fast stubborn horses.

Twice, we saw flocks of emerald green wild parrots.

Nothing else exciting really happened, except for the time that I was trying to dismount and my foot got stuck in the stirrup, which spooked the hell out of the horse and almost got me dragged. Luckily, the saddle was a complete piece of crap, and the stirrup just broke off, so I didn’t have to get dragged through dirt and horse shit.

Also, there was the other time that I thought I could just jump onto the horse from above and take off. Actually, that was a successful endeavour as I did jump on the horse, and it did start taking off at very high speeds. However, as neither of my feet were in the stirrups, I decided to jump back off under my own recognizance rather than getting bounced off. Twenty minutes later, our FOURTEEN year old guide caught my horse and calmed it down sufficiently so that I could mount it in the proper fashion.

At the end of two days, with chafed legs and intimately acquainted with the term “saddle sore”, I was glad to be back in town (Tupiza, Bolivia), and relaxing by taking a freezing cold shower at our disgustingly dirty hostel.