Today we had the single most anticipated activity by Tasha planned. Riding horses at a ranch. Plans had changed for the rest of the people who were on the boat but my dad sweet talked his way into getting us to the ranch. Both of my parents are very allergic to animals so they stayed behind for our horse ride but they were able to take some amazing pictures.
We got to the ranch and saw the single friendliest dog ever fly down the bank of the river to greet us. There were pigs, chickens, and dogs wandering around everywhere. We walked around as the group from the farm saddled the horses and saw some extremely small piglets. They asked if we had ridden horses before and we replied once. So our English speaking tour guide, don johnny got onto his horse after a few tries, as did we and we set off. Without a lesson or introduction to riding. This was not what I expected to happen. I thought we would be led around on horses, but no. We were told just to follow don Johnny and stay on the horse. I knew that to make the horse go faster you have to kick it but I didn’t want to kick so hard that it started galloping. Don Johnny and Tasha’s horses got ahead of me and I tried to speed up the walk but didn’t have much success. Don Johnny asked if we wanted to go faster and we said sure, but once we kicked the horses starting galloping full tilt, which I was not ready for and nearly fell off the horse. After that attempt we slowed back down to a walk and continued through the ranch. They got ahead of me again and my horse decided to make me walk through a bush because I didn’t really know how to direct it well. We turned around and got the hang of a trot on the way back. We got some pictures and went back to the boat free a really fun time.
