Chicken fighting Mr.Tyson…the biting horse

June 13th, 2009: Yesterday, I had to make a tuff decision…burn thousands upon thousands of calories walking to the multitude of Archeological sites that dotted the San Agustin area or take a horse and burn a lot less. Not liking to be wasteful, I chose option #2…take a horse. This was also a good opportunity to improve my riding skills and get a more relaxed look instead of the, “just got caught masturbating in the hostel look.”

Today I was looking forward to the horseback ride more than the sites, which have failed miserably to capture my attention the past few days. Not that I didn’t appreciate what I saw, perhaps I just saw too many pre-Colombian megalithic sculptures (a.k.a. standing stones) numbing the pleasure. Sitting patiently at the hostel, our horses showed up over an hour late. My guide’s tardiness didn’t bother me but it really disturbed the French guy from my hostel, Pierre, who was ranting about how the people we were waiting for must be English speaking people – claiming only English speaking people would make others wait, so that they could eat breakfast.

The horses here seem a bit taller than those in Salento, but still vertically challenged – good for the Colombians and good for me. Mounting our horses, we rode down the hill to pick up the others…hoping Pierre was wrong. As we pulled up, I was relieved about his flawed international generalizations. They were fortunately not English speaking travelers and unfortunately, not French. This made me wonder…is he still upset about how we disgraced the, “French Fries” by calling them “Freedom Fries” right after our invasion of Iraq, or is it something much deeper?

My horse was an older horse that knew the coarse well, but I was still able to override his routine. Not wanting to do too many altercations in case he would get angry, I would let him pretty much do what he wanted…running and chicken fighting was just a few of them.

Something changed inside my brain today. I really enjoyed the speed the horse produced - without having to fill in the event with a false sense of it being fun, to overcome my fear. I seemed to figure out that you can’t just sit in the saddle as if it was a modified La-Z-Boy when running. I needed to use my undefined thigh muscles as if I was an Ultimate Fighter in a UFC match clinching my opponent hoping for the tap out.

My smile lines became deeper when we were dashing up and down the mud slide like trails as the rain gushed out of the clouds as if it was holding it all night, waiting till the morning so everyone could see. The other horses would slowly inch their way down the slippery trials when mine would move at a steady pace and when possible…run. Even with all of his life experience my horse would slip from time to time, stumbling along the way, but somehow was always able to save us from a fall. With more confidence then ever before, my right hand still maintained the lock on the horn of the saddle – so much, I now have one callused hand. This is not good…especially being a solo backpacker. Maybe next time I will switch off using my left hand, so no assumptions can be made…on why one had is softer than the other.

Is there always a rotten piece of flesh in every group of horses? Today, it was Mr. Tyson (name was changed to protect his identity) and thankfully he wasn’t my horse. He would not just stop at trying to bite his own rider’s legs, but he would also lash out at the others who would get too close, biting the French guy. The Italian woman on him would let him go about his disobedient rampage with no ramifications. As soon as my horse would decide to pass, I would give him a rib massage with my heels trying to make him go faster for some extra assurance that we are going to clear them without any altercations.

At times, we were either blocked during the pass by Mr. Tyson or we would be forced to engage in a full on chicken fight. Rusty on chicken fighting warfare, since I haven’t performed this since I was a kid in my neighbors pool, I had to quickly access my memory banks…pulling up any proven strategies to avoid a potentially painful loss. As Tyson would lean into me, he displayed his cockiness by smiling, giving me a full dental view of his perfectly aligned teeth prior to striking. Pulling my leg out of my stirrup to avoid being bitten, I would counterstrike leaning down and hitting his nose with an open hand, too kicking him…yelling my signature, “NO!” I am sure PETA would not have condoned this act of violence toward an animal. Perhaps just a simple time-out was in order, but I did not give consent for a temporary tattoo on my leg. Hindsight…I think I can now relate to my last guide wanting to box my horse, Billy Bad Ass when I was in Salento.