Study Abroad in Santiago, Chile and Travels in South America 2013: Easter Island By Horse

Hola todos,

Wednesday, we went horse-back riding. That was... an adventure. Conor, Karen and I met up to go to the highest point of the island in which it is possible to see ocean all around you. We got picked up at around 9:30AM and went to the hotel in which we would be leaving from. Let me just begin by saying that this is very representational experience of South America.
We arrive and are greeted by our guide. We then go over to the shed to gear up i.e. with protectors on our legs/covering our shoes. And then, he asks if we want to wear helmets. Obviously we said no. But, only in South America would they ask if we wanted to. In the U.S., you will factually be wearing a helmet. More so, it was only Conor's second time riding a horse. Only in South America.
We went over and got our horses and headed out. We were imagining a tranquil, calm ride... well, we were in for quite a surprise. When we got on the trail to go, the guide whipped the horses and we started trotting! Without helmets! I'm thinking, wow, really? So we're trotting and naturally because none of us had really horse-back rode in quite a bit of time, our bodies were not used to being bumped around atop a horse. Therefore after an hour of trotting, we're getting sore. There was even one point when he whipped the horses and we started cantering! Cantering! I was fine with it because it's smoother than trotting, but still! A person get actually get injured if they fell off while cantering. Either way, we continue to trot and I asked the guy if we could walk for a little bit and he said how we couldn't because we needed to get to the top of the mountain by 12. We're all thinking, okay, well at least we tried; we can do another hour of this.
Oh goodness, by the time we were up there and got off the horses, our legs pretty much gave out. But, pain and soreness aside, it was absolutely gorgeous. We could see not only the entire island, but the entire ocean all around us. There were hills upon hills around us and then nothing beyond. Just blue. It was very blueautiful. (I have been wanting to use that word for days now). We took some pictures and breathed the fresh-unlike-Santiago air and enjoyed the warmth and sun. Then, we were off to return.
Thankfully the man said that it was going to be a calm walk down the hill because horses can't trot down hills. We were all very happy about that. We started off the first little bit with him true to his word, but then towards the end, he started to whip the horses to trot again. Of course. We are all very sore at this point and I laughed the pain off at how this would never happen in the U.S. Also, my horse was kind of evil and started to run me into tree branches. As in, oh look there's a tree with many branches sticking out and they'll probably hit the person riding me. Perfect let's aim for it. Therefore, I'm riding with my arms protecting my face. This happened about five times. There was even one occasion when the horse was about to run into a big thorny tree and the guide didn't really do anything, he just told me to be careful because the tree is thorny. He didn't guide the horse in a different direction or anything, he just mentioned that I should find a way to not have my entire face slit open. Therefore, I had to basically lean my body to the side of the horse to avoid scratches all over my body. As ridiculous as this was, I couldn't help but laugh. Finally we returned back and happily mounted off the horses. It was a wonderful feeling.
We said goodbye and then wobbled back into town to get some lunch. We were lucky and found a place that had couches to sit on. We sat there and drank juice and talked about what we had just been through. We made it home and just collapsed. There was no way we were doing anything for the rest of the day. Therefore, we made dinner: my left over pasta with broccoli, squash, oil, garlic and cheese. Really good. We relaxed the rest of the night preparing for the pain we were going to endure the next morning.