Naughty Pavarotti!!!

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It was nice to get a sleep in this morning, we didn’t get up until 8!!! We went for a walk on the beach, played cards with some of the group and then ate lunch before heading off to go horseriding. We had booked to do a two hour trek in the forest and the beach. It being Chris’ second time horseriding he told the people that he had never been to ensure he got a horse suitable for novices. Chris was given Pavorotti and I was given Emma. Unfortunately the horseriding didn’t go as well as expected. In the first half hour of horseriding, we were given the opportunity to go for a trot. Chris was right behind me and said he was happy to try trotting. Whilst trotting, his horse bit my horse causing my horse to kick out at his, Chris’ horse reacted by throwing him off! We all stopped to see if Chris was ok, my horse was starting to get a bit panicky but I thought she would calm down. Chris got up and he had hurt his back quite badly. He said he was happy enough to go on, but perhaps not on the same horse, the girl who was taking us out said that she wasn’t entirely confident on Pavorotti as he is hard to control and can play up quite a bit – not sure why they gave him to a novice rider! Chris was placed on her horse and we set off again. My horse however started jumping about a lot and anytime a horse came near her she tried to run off in a different direction. I decided it was best if Chris and I headed back instead of continuing on the trek.

The male guide wouldn’t let me get off at the start and tried to come over to me and Emma to calm her down, however his horse coming near her freaked her out again and she tried to back away and was getting very jumpy. By this stage I decided it was best to get off Emma, and the female guide agreed that Emma was obviously quite startled from being bitten. Chris and I started walking back, the male guide took our horses, however Emma started going crazy at being placed so close to his horse, seeing her like that I was glad I had decided to get off. Chris was in quite a bit of pain walking back. We spoke to the owner when we got back and he apologised, saying that Pavorotti can be quite a difficult horse. The owner took us back to our campsite where we got Chris some painkillers and just sat with some members of our group in the bar area. In the evening we ate a hog roast for dinner, complete with sweet potato and gravy. Chris loved the crackling! We were a bit worried later on as Chris started having similar symptoms to the kidney stones he had a few months ago. We got some strong painkillers from nurses who were in our group and Chris went to bed straight away hoping it wouldn’t be kidney stones.

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