Extreme horse riding - Peru style

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We left Ecuador on Thursday afternoon and spent a day and a half in Lima, Peru before catching a flight to Cusco, Peru and then a bus to Ollantaytambo.

A couple of small observations about Ecuador.
In Banos the local garbage truck drives around and plays music like it is a Mr Whippy Ice cream van.
At the Quito Airport they don´t use sniffer dogs they actually use the customs staff to sniff your bags. True story. It happened to us.

Ollantaytambo is a beautiful town. It is set in the Sacred Valley and is surrounded by huge mountains, a river that runs through the town and old Inca ruins which are over 500 years old. Our hotel is at the foot of a huge mountain and about 500 meters above our hotel are some Inca ruins built into the mountain side. Dom and I decided to hike up to some of the ruins yesterday, we got about halfway before a we called it a day as the sun was setting. The steps up the mountain are the original Inca ones so they are a bit dodgy in the daylight so we didn´t fancy our chances coming down in the dark.

We had an early start today (Sunday) and headed up the mountain again and we reached the ruins we wanted to see and photograph. We took heaps of photos though we still haven´t worked out how to upload them. It took us an hour to get up and about 20 minutes to get down. The altitude here certainly kicks in as we are almost 3km above sea level, so every 20 steps or so despite how fit you are , it is necessary to stop to catch your breath. It certainly makes your heart beat fast. However, not as fast as the horse riding did for us this afternoon.

We hired out a couple of ´tranquilo´horses and a guide for 2 hours of exploring on horseback. Remember we now consider ourselves experts after Ecuador!!! Our guide Alan led us through fields of corn, past farms with pigs, cows, ducks and chickens, all the while gradually climbing steeper and steeper. So far so good.

The scenary was breath taking, I thought Banos in Ecuador was good, but this was better and different too, in that it wasn´t so lush and green, the mountains we more rocky and craggy and so much higher. We could clearly see mountains not that far into the distance which were covered in snow.

We got an inkling the horses weren´t as good as their Ecuadorian counterparts when the Alan´s horse was startled by a car which was parked at a farm. My horse named Flacca (which means skinny one) was startled not much further along by a piece of blue tarp, Doms horse named Rosa just kept farting. When some dogs ran out and barked at us I feared the worse but luckily, the horses weren´t worried by the local Perros.

We started climbing up some narrow tracks and at one point I asked Alan if we could stop so that I could get a picture of the snow capped mountains, that to me looked like Switzerland. We stopped on a track that was about 2.5 meters wide and I remained on trusty Flacca whilst I attempted to remove my back pack and grab my camera out of it. The sight of the back pack startled Flacca so that he bucked, turned and panicked (but not as much as me) I had visions of both of us tumbling about 500 meters down a rocky drop to our untimely deaths. Fortunately Alan assisted me in getting Flacca under control. I hopped off Flacco and took the money shot......it turned out pretty good and I will never forget the circumstances of how it was obtained. At this point Dom suggested we turn back and to be honest I wouldn´t have minded too, however, Alan told us all would be good and like fools we believed him.

We continued to trek further up the mountain, the sun disappeared, and it became windy and not just from Rosa. The tracks began to get thinner and thinner, so much so that sometimes we would be zigzagging up these rocky paths that were no wider than 1.2 meters with a huge drop down to the bottom. Im not big on heights so I just concentrated on looking ahead and not looking down. One false move by the horses and we would be gone. It wasn´t quite the trek what Dom and I expected or even wanted, but what could we do. We eventually reached the peak, which according to Alan was 3.3 KM in altitude, yes KM, from the base of where we started.

At the peak it was cold and windy, then there was lightning, thunder and finally rain. I just prayed the horses were going to be spooked by the lightning and thunder. At a couple of points the horses refused point blank to even move down some of the paths, so Alan had to hop of his horse and lead ours down by their reins.

We commenced our trip down along narrow tracks. Twice my horse lost his footing and stumbled, and twice I hung on for dear life. Eventually after what seemed like an eternity we reached the bottom. Out 2 hour trek turned into a 3 and a half hour trek. We shall wait to see how sore we are from it tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow (Monday) we leave for 2 days in Cusco before attempting the 4 day 3 night Inca Trail. After our hikes we have done here in Ollantaytumbo at least we know what to expect.

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