Amy woke up with a migraine today. We think it had been brewing for awhile but the altitude change probably didn’t help. As a result, after breakfast she went back to bed.
Anna and I headed over to our tour operator for the salt lakes tour which is starting tomorrow to finalise things. We have to go back later tonight to pay as they were still waiting on the last people to confirm and the price changes depending on numbers. While there we also changed some of our US dollars into Boliviarios. Tupiza is really a small town and there are no ATMs at all or any banks open on a Sunday!
We then headed off on our horse ride. It was a real pity Amy missed out because it was great fun, just me, Anna, our guide who looked maybe 12 years old and our horses. Anna’s horse was nice and placid, mine was a bit of a bolter! Also according to Anna who was mostly behind me, my horse was a farter. Unlike trail rides in Australia or NZ there were no waivers to sign, no helmets to wear (when I can put up photos you will see we did get great leather gaucho hats) and the minute we were off the road we were cantering. Given the length of time it has been since I’ve been on a horse I thought I managed ok, although it wasn’t very graceful and I will admit to holding on the saddle a bit!
Our tour took us up to some major landmarks, the devils gate and the Inca canyon. Both are pretty spectacular rock formations but after the amazing landscape around Salta they weren’t that brilliant. At the canyon we got off our horses and walked up for a bit to take photos and do a quick strip off of thermals away from prying eyes as the day had got nice and warm. It was lovely. We met another tour group including a girl who had decided she didn’t like her horse and wanted to walk back. Now we had been riding for about 1.5 hours at this point and the tracks we took were intersected with many varied other options so Anna and I didn’t think she was making a wise decision, but we have seen her in town so she did make it.
We left the canyon, this time with my horse third and started another canter. The path was wide so my horse decided this was his opportunity to bolt to the front! It was a pretty wild ride but I stayed on, kind of got him under control (I think he was just happy to be at the front) and everyone caught up. From then on he looked for any opportunity to get away so I had an interesting time keeping him on the straight and narrow.
The trail got a bit more interesting from there. We had a couple of small jumps over eroded channels, up and down some steep trails and through quite dense scrub. The bushes are covered with long thorns and there are lots of cactuses, both the tall, many armed ones as well as low groundcover ones. Unfortunately there is lots and lots and lots of rubbish everywhere. Just think of one of our national parks filled with old garbage and stray dogs. Towards the end of the ride we came across an old, traditionally dressed woman driving a huge herd of goats. It was really cute as they wandered along eating anything and everything and with tiny little kids crying out for their mums.
In that section, we passed a couple of dogs who barked as us. As we headed up onto the road however, they tore after Anna’s horse barking and biting at him. Anna kept him under control really well as our guide raced back to hold them off. We picked up some speed to get away but they were really tenacious, chasing after us and trying to get to the horses with our guide in between for blocks. It was a fairly exciting end to a really fun morning.
By the time we got back Amy was feeling lots better so we had a nice lunch and then a wander about the town. We were pretty tired by then, so we ended up sitting on the curb in the sun opposite our hostel watching two very cute little dogs managing their patch of turf from a door stoop. Since then we have had showers as last night all the pipes froze so we are not planning on being able to have showers in the morning before we head off to the salt lakes.
No comments:
Post a Comment