Caballeros in Salta

Well... not exactly, there weren't really any knights involved but there were definately horses! And asado, and open fields and blue skies... which together made for a truely wonderful day out. Salta, it turns out, is a great place to explore a little of the Andean "outback" the traditional way, on horseback.

We were picked up from our hostel at around 1pm and taken to the ranch about 30 minutes away where we sat around and enjoyed the clean air and the delicious smell of the barbeque roasting far more meat than all of us put together could or should possibly eat. The one thing that was making us (me) feel better was the fact that we would be doing some good exercise afterwards :)

We ate and had a little siesta (not actually sleeping but sitting around) and then one of the cowboys appeared with a lassoo to rope in some of the horses for us to use for our ride. The dopy looking white horse here turned out to be mine and what a character he was! He had two speeds, very slow and slightly too fast... but when you figured out that he was happiest trudging along at the back letting the space between him and the next horse grow and grow until it was great enough to justify a little trot... then we got along just fine :)

But I get ahead of myself. We each got assigned to a horse and, with a little help, got on them. The ride took us down the road and then into a field, up a hill and back again via a different route. Johan (his first time on a horse) was riding like a pro and even managed to shine when the crazy instructor raced by us and encouraged all the horses to speed up to a fast trot or even a canter!

Of course we will be paying for this tomorrow with sore bums and achy muscles but it was well worth the wonderful day that it turned out to be!