Thursday

Thursday was a day a lot of us were looking forward to – horseback riding! We hopped into two little vans and drove about 45 minutes to Ritoque Expediciones. We went over a few basic rules and riding techniques before we got on, and then everyone got assigned to a horse. Mine was named Plátano, and we had a little bit of a love-hate relationship. When everyone was finally on their horse we set out, having to cross a shallow river almost right away. My horse did pretty well, besides deciding to eat when we were still standing in the river. We got going again with a little encouragement. We got to one part where he said we could gallop, but it was a little short, so the most my horse managed was a trot. Eventually we got up onto the sand dunes – I was definitely a little scared going up, but we all made it. The dunes were really fun, but there were some pretty narrow little paths that we had to follow. Finally we made it to the beach, where we had a lot of opportunities to gallop. It was super fun, but I always felt like I was going to fall off when we were slowing down from a gallop. My horse stopped to eat a lot, but so did everyone else’s. At one point I was galloping near the water when a wave came in, so we ended up galloping in the water; that didn’t get me too wet, but the person galloping next to me (even farther into the water) definitely did get me fairly wet. It was a little cold, but it could’ve been worse. At the end of the beach there was this little inlet we had to cross that looked fairly deep. Our Chuck Norris-like guide forged ahead to find a safe place to cross. When he did they told us to cross single-file. When about 1/3 of the group was across, they all of a sudden told everyone to just come on across. I guess the tide was coming in so it was getting deeper! I got quite wet going across (especially my shoes), but I can’t say I really cared that much since I was already wet. The rest of the trip was through a pretty swampy are, where we saw a little bit of a river that had mostly drained to the ocean. There were some fish in there that couldn’t really swim because it was too shallow – another sad sight. Our Chuck-Norris like guide again proves worthy of his nickname when he caught one of them using a broom, without even getting off of his horse; of course, he then carried it back by its gills. After our ride we all hopped off our horses and went to a little barbecue they had set up for us. It was really nice, and they had some delicious potato salad. Getting back to the hotel everyone was ready for a shower and a nap, but there was no hot water in most of our rooms. I ended up taking a shower in Jo’s room, since she still had hot water (even though I was the fourth one in). Finally it was nap time before a group dinner that night at Diego Pizza. It was nice because Werner and all our student guides were there for our farewell dinner. The pizza itself was a little too out-there for my tastes, so I ended up scraping off all the toppings and just eating the crust. We had t-shirts for our student guides, and they had USM hoodies for all of us. More gelato on the way back before getting ready to go out to Goose for our last night out. Maria and Javier showed up at Goose, which was great. It was a pretty fun night to follow a fun day. After we got back, Alexa, Marshall, and I went to the gas station for some snacks and we saw Felipe there! It felt pretty cool to be greeting someone in a random gas station.