After not posting for a few days, we have a bundle of posts to update everyone on our previous week where we have traveled from St Lucia to Grenada, many of our posts have been postponed as we’ve had a jam-packed few days which have included meeting Abis’ dad and swapping a white snowy Christmas for a white sandy Christmas! This post will take us back to St Lucia where we were riding upon horses along the beach, so here goes…
For anyone who has ridden a horse will know that the very first time you step up and onto the horse, it feels like you’re all of a sudden VERY high up! For Abi and I this was our first time and boy, it was scary! The closest either of us have been to a horse is stroking the mane and admiring the animals from afar, however taking the leap and climbing onto one is certainly an achievement in itself for me! I’ve never been too keen on riding horses, but with a cousin who is a very keen rider and my sister having done previous lessons, I knew that at some point, I’d have to see what it was all about so why not do it in the middle of the Caribbean along a white sand beach? For Abi, her mum has always been very into horses and has even had her own horses so she too needed to experience what everyone was telling us we were missing out on!
After initially getting onto the horses, we were told to hold the reigns and use them as if they were a joystick, pull back to stop, forward to go, left for left and right for right. Easier said than done when your horse loves a little nibble. Head down and grazing on the grass, Big Man (Elles’ horse) certainly proved to be a big eater when we yanked me down nearly going head over heels! Holding on for dear life, I asked our guide, nicknamed Yellow for his hair, if this was normal and how to control the horse. Having 30 years riding experience and knowing the horse would listen to him, he said just give the reigns a yank up and tell him to stop… Yeah, easier said than done! Especially when you don’t know how to handle what I can only call beasts at this time! However, once we got moving it was clear that these horses knew the path they were taking an for the majority of it, it was just holding on and balancing yourself upright. Until we got to the hills, I kept getting told “lean back” when we approached the hill so in doing so we were more balanced for when the horses began trotting upwards… This is now considered the easy part by myself and Abs!
I can’t speak for Abis’ horse, Rocky, but Big Man just wanted to eat eat eat… So every now and then, I was forced to pull his reigns to the right and tell him off for eating on the job! Although he knew I was a first timer and didn’t pay much attention to little me sat on his back when he knew he could tuck in to some beautiful green leaves! Oh and arriving up to the muddy puddles, Rocky and Big Man both had the same idea… Lets’ have some fun and get these guys as wet and muddy as possible and they succeeded in doing so! It’s safe to say that I’m glad we were sweltering in the Caribbean heat and wearing long trousers and hiking boots was worth it as I’m sure my white vans and Abis’ white Pumas’ weren’t have been happy getting sodden with mud! I fail to mention that the horses themselves were nearly knee-deep in these mud puddles and allbeit there was a path to the side which would’ve kept us dry and mud-free but nah, they wanted to give us the greatest riding experience possible!
Arriving onto the beach we took a little stop at a bar where we treated ourselves to Rum and Coke because of course we were told there’s only laws for drinking and driving, nothing to suggest we can’t drink and ride! We knew that booking a 2 hour tour allowed us to experience riding the horses in the water which isn’t fun for just us as apparently the horses love to trek through the waves. This time we swapped horses and although I’m not sure of who I rode through the water, Abi took upon Spongebob who followed behind me on our way up to the beach. From occasionally looking back when I braved doing so, I knew that Spongebob was a rebel horse and didn’t listen to anyone but himself, in other words, he simply did his own thing! It’s all fun and games knowing that you’ve got a well-behaved horse and your partner has the naughty one! Riding through the waves was certainly an experience and Spongebob, living up to expectations, had to be told off by the guide as he simply didn’t want to take Abi any further into the sea! I must admit he wasn’t far off being submerged, being a smaller horse, he was keen on staying in the shallower parts of the sea. Credit to our guide who managed to capture some absolutely gorgeous photos for us!
Who needs hands!?
After treading the waves horsey style, we climbed back onto our original horses and headed back to the stables. Of course going back through the muddy puddles and splashing a little more mud onto our backs, for bants I’m sure the horses agreed! In order to make it a more interesting, we were also given the opportunity to try and trot a little faster on our horses which at first was very scary! I know that I was being told to rise into a more standing position whilst doing so, but I just couldn’t get the hang of positioning the reigns so poor Big Man, whenever he began to trot, the reigns were being pulled back, in effect telling him to stop. I’m sure you can imagine how funny it looked whenever we did one or two faster trots and then boom, he’d stop. Yeah, I’m still sorry and I must’ve been the most confusing rider to date! On the other hand, it must’ve come naturally to Abi who although admitting at first she was terrified and had no idea what was going on whilst she was being bounced into the air, after a minute or so she got the hang of it!
Back into the hilly part of the ride, if you go up you gotta come back down… So, Rocky led the way taking Abi smoothly down the hill, whilst Big Man literally takes a single hoof at a time and I’m on the back feeling quite comfortable telling him to speed it up a little as he was really falling behind. Following me was the guide and he calmly said to me “Big Man always takes it very steady downhills because he’s very clumsy on his feet.” So I immediately took back my request to speed up! In fact I think I just held on tighter and prayed for the best! For the guide, don’t tell this to a first time rider who is nervous enough! Nevertheless, we managed to arrive on flat ground safe and sound.
Climbing down from the horses for a final time and saying goodbye was a relief, but for definite we’ve said we would do it again and certainly looking forward to having many more horse-riding experiences! These are very beautiful animals and really do listen to those which they trust and spend every day with. Although scary at first, it was a remarkable experience, I’m sure it’d only take a few more rides for us both to feel a lot more confident, even though it probably wasn’t enough to make us jump at the chance of getting a horse, we certainly see why people are in love with horses and spend a lot of time and effort learning to ride professionally!
Pulling up to our hotel and stepping out to the hotel, Abi suddenly felt the repercussions of riding as she immediately had aching butt cheeks! I think it was those faster trots! These lasted a good few days and for me, not so intense due to the stop start approach that I took, I could definitely tell that I’d been horse-riding!
Saturday 17th December we fly from St Lucia to Grenada where we will be met by Abis’ dad so stay tuned for our post on how that went!
Seasons greetings!
Elbitravels x
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