We’ve done lots of horse back riding on this trip. Iceland, Italy, Morocco, New Zealand, Easter Island, Santiago, and here, San Pedro Atacama. I love riding horses, the strength and personality in a horse makes it all the more fun. We were originally going to go horse back riding the first day in San Pedro, but we rented bikes and went sand boarding instead. The next day was a full day of touring around from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. We visited a ton of beautiful spots and went up to 4,000 meters in altitude, the scenery here definitely competes for the most stunning we’ve seen on the trip so far. Then the next day was touring with Alex again in his fancy Mercedes van from 5:00 am to 11:30 am with a mid day break then back with Alex from 3:00 to 6:30. I really wanted to go horse back riding on the mid day break so dad had Alvaro call Javier (the horse owner) and schedule a ride from 12:00 to 2:00.
We took Alvaro with us from Santiago when we visited our good friends the Coxes as our translator. Alvaro is officially our hero for making things 1000 times easier in San Pedro Atacama, In fact mom bought a cool bag and we named it Alvaro in honor of the real Alvaro. Alvaro (the bag) has now joined our other carry-ons Carrot, Lu Lu Lemon, and Le Boat.
The horses were beautiful and well groomed, you could tell from their glistening and soft coats. The ride got off to a rough start between me and Pretentiouso (my horse) that’s right Pretentiouso is Spanish for, you guessed it Pretentious. Right when we left the gate to go onto the dirt road leading to town Pretentiouso banged me into the rock wall lining the path, giving me a size able bruise on my knee. She was also a head thrower, so about every five seconds she’d thrash her head around straining against the reigns.
She also and an amazingly strong desire for speed, she just wanted to run forever and I have no trouble believing she could with all that’s energy. But with me on her back restraining her she slowed to a fast paced walk. It was a battle for control between Pretentiouso and I, until we finally got to go first leading the group. She calmed down and stopped freaking out so much once she was in front. The other thing that she would do was whenever there was a hill even the smallest little thing she would start running up it. So when dad called my name from behind me and I turned around to look at him Pretensiouso took off with me. In front of us there was a bunch of little bumps which Pretentiouso found was a good enough excuse to run. She also hated to stop so when I would finally get her to slow down after the run it was like walking was impossible for her she had to be trotting, so completely stopping was practically out of the question.
Javier and Alvaro were best “buddies” as Alvaro likes to say. They talked the entire two hours just chatting each other up. After the ride was over Alvaro told me that Pretentiouso was a Chilean race horse and that Javier was really worried about me on him. The ride was super fun and was one of my favorites on the trip with the breath taking scenery and surprise gallops.
