Horses for Courses

The Norwegians staying in the house with us explained how northern Europeans dream for years of lying on the beach in the sun and urged us not to be so hard on them. They were setting off for a day by the crystal blue and I see their point.

We, on the other hand organised a horse ride through a sugar cane plantation, through the national forest and to waterfall. I thought that the trip was three hours. I listened carefully and I swear I heard him say one hour there, on hour swimming and one hour back. I know I heard him say the number three many times. Indeed he did. It was three hours each way!
Sugar cane farmer's daughter

We had only one litre of water between us and the riding was really hard. The walking was bearable, the trotting was painful and the cantering was fun. At one point I got really sick and could not work it out. When I actually thought I might faint (no vision, then spots before my eyes, then nausea) I realised that I had motion sickness.

In the end, I think I had pretty severe dehydration, heat stroke, motion sickness and was sore all over. The cowboy guide tried everything, changing the stirrups, fanning me with his hat, consoling me, then he had a brain wave. He got me to change horses with Tony and things improved. My horse had a particularly bad gait, Tony´s was a smooth ride. So I made it back in one piece. The boys raced off and had fun, but in the end even they had got horse riding out of their systems for quite a while.

The young fit German tourists behind us said that it was the hardest thing they had ever done, and they were going to spend a week in a spa. This made me (double their age) feel better.

Back in the room, I opened and used one of my emergency packages of Pantene conditioner. Having soft hair for the first time in two weeks made me feel better. My calf muscle went into cramp because I had sweated so much. I have promised myself not to go horse riding for another 50 years.