Sunday, June 7, 2009

Guatemala...Part 5

We made it to the resort Sunday evening and settled into our little villas. It was beautiful! While there I held a frog (a good-sized one too!) until it peed all over my hand, and I about stepped on a snake too. Yuck! They had the most ginormous grasshoppers with bright red wings that would spread out when they flew.

There were two villas reserved, so the arrangements were: Married Couples in one and everybody else in the other. There was so much to do at the resort and it was a lot of fun! Swimming, eating (there were 2 restaurants as well as a cafe type eating place by the pool), kayaking, jetskiing, horseback riding, etc. Our second day there we all decided we'd do some horseback riding through the jungle! I haven't been on a horse in forever, and was really excited. Greg's family had several horses many years back and so they're all pretty knowledgeable when it comes to riding and handling horses. June 9th we went horseback riding and there were 13 of us on horses.
The leader told us to go ahead and pick a horse so I chose this beautiful dark brown horse with a white strip down it's nose. We were riding along and all was well when he got kicked by another horse (I guess it didn't like the other horses coming up from behind it that close) and kinda jumped up a little and was shaking his head back and forth. That made me a little nervous, but Don was riding by me and was telling me what to do in a situation like that (how to hold the reigns, etc.) and how to get control of your horse. I was a little nervous but all was well until about 15 min later I don't know what happened cause it all happened so fast, but my horse was standing up on it's back legs with me on it's back. And I mean STRAIGHT UP on it's back legs. I didn't know whether to jump off or what but I was so afraid that the horse was gonna fall backward and land on top of me. He was up on his back legs for a good couple seconds too and everyone was getting worried and panicking and telling me what to do and trying to get the horse to calm down and then he got down but another horse kicked him and he did it again. The leader got him to calm down and I was so shaken up I about started bawling. Greg was way up ahead (cause his horse wanted to be up front, apparently) and came back and traded me horses. His horse was VERY calm. But I was still so nervous to even be on a horse. I didn't know what I was doing and don't know how to even ride a horse to be honest. Turns out the one horse I picked out of the entire pack used to be a parade horse and paraded all around Guatemala and was trained to stand up on its hind legs like that for show. What are the odds? I sure have the best luck eh?

This is me on Greg's horse, barely even holding the reigns as I was instructed to do.

Greg riding "Pasqual" the parade horse. Greg wanted him to stand on end with him on the back, but Pasqual acted like he was all "tricked out" and was as calm as could be once Greg was on his back.
Me and Greg on our horsies.

Kim, Monica, Jason, Me, Greg, Don, Doug, Halee
Sorry, everyone else got cut off.
We made it back just after it started getting dark and had dinner and hung out for the remainder of the evening. Man were we sore the next day from horse-riding!

0 comments: