Sunset in Drakensburg


Horses

Drakensburg mountains

Storm coming in.

3/28/07





Today was amazing, like every day on this spring break has been. I woke up this morning very well rested. At 10 AM we left for horseback riding and arrived at this really cute farm. There was 10 of us in total, I believe, and we were initially separated into people who have ridden before and those who had not. I had ridden before, once, but in a tiny space with someone holding the rope and the horse was walking, not in a gallop or canter. Yet, even though I had done that once, I was placed into the group that had ridden before. Basically they did that so that the people who had never ridden before got the horses that were more tame (or so we thought). I rode Christmas - a beautiful brown horse. I tried to pet him but he was turned around backwards in his little pen thing and I was afraid of scaring him. When he finally turned around, I went to pet him and he ran away! My horse did not like me and tried to bite me. I got a little scared, just because he would not let me get near him but once I mounted him, everything was fine.





I pretty much got a really quick lesson a horse, given to me by Mia and not by our guides and we were off. Basically, a guide went up front and all of the other horses followed while a guide was in back to keep an eye on the less experienced people. Obviously Mia, Katie and Lara went up front because they had ridden before. Christmas, along with all of the horses, were not the most well behaved and was very temperamental. He kept eating while we were walking (we went through big fields in the valley, with gorgeous views of mountains on all sides). I kept having to pull his head up. To my surprise though, we had not been going long when the guide started to gallop - hence the rest of our horses started to gallop. I did not know the proper technique one needs to adopt in order to gallop so the first time, I was just bouncing up and down really fast. It was very uncomfortable and I could not understand for the life of me why somebody would want to ride a horse when it felt like this. Finally, I realized that you had to adopt a motion that was congruent with the horse's movements. Basically, you use your thighs to lift you up and you raise yourself up and down in motion with the horse in order to make it a less bumpy and fluid ride. Once I caught onto that, galloping was fun. I did get a tension headache eventually because it was still rather bumpy (and the exercising of picking myself up and down really hurt my knees). It was absolutely crazy though - here I was, a complete beginner on a horse, out on a horse on my own (as in nobody was leading it by a rope) and I was galloping. This would never happen in the states! First of all, it would cost so much money to do (unlike our situation) and you would have to have taken lessons for at least a year! I was astounded but it was so much fun! Oh and these trails were by no means easy. My horse was tripping and sliding up the hills. Frequently he decided that he wanted to pass the horse in front of me and would break into a canter. The first time I was so confused and was like "Oh crap...what is going on? Where are you going?" Also my horse liked to make his own paths through bushes and other random things that scratched me. And my horse was very stubborn. At times, he almost bit my ankles because I needed him to stop eating grass and to pick up his head. It was quite frustrating.





We took a break so that the horses could rest and eat. I took in the scenery. This is when I pulled out my camera to take pictures. Mia has pictures of me on the horse because her camera was smaller and could clip to my belt whereas mine was bulky, and with the galloping horse, would have left me with a huge bruise due to the camera.





On our way back, we galloped most of the way and Lara's horse decided it did not want to walk through a stream but jumped over it instead. After that, we made sure to make our horses walk through the stream rather than jump because not all of us would have handled that incident as gracefully as Lara did. A storm was coming in and you could hear the thunder in the distance and see the lightning. I think it might have spooked Christmas, my horse, a little bit because all of a sudden, he got out of line and cantered like someone just slapped him on the butt. Eventually I got him to slow down but I was scared for a little bit since I did not know what on earth he was doing. Overall, it was a very satisfying experience. I would love to take lessons at home, because I loved the riding so much, but I would be frustrated by how expensive the lessons are and by how slow I would be allowed to progress on the horse when I have ridden, galloped and cantered by myself on one in South Africa. Things are so different here - this is only one of many examples.





We made it back just in time because when we got back to the hotel, it started to rain. The rest of the day was spent around the chalets, watching various movies on t.v. and resulted in me finishing Jane Eyre, which was fantastic, by the way. Later that night, before writing this and going to bed, I turned my phone on to see that I missed a call from Mom. She left me a message saying that she got my official John Hopkins acceptance letter and that they were offering me full tuition, full dental, full medical and a $26850 stipend. I was ecstatic! I was leaning more towards John Hopkins anyways but this cemented my decision. How on earth could I not accept it? I called Mom back and she said she would kick my butt if I did not accept the offer. I AM GOING TO JOHN HOPKINS!! I cannot believe it! My dream - holy crap!! I am a little, scratch that, VERY scared but very excited at the same time.





Anyways, I went to go up and tell everybody else (we were having a dance party going on at the main house since it was our last night). When I walked out of my chalet (it was nighttime), I saw something moving and when it moved into the light, it was a bloody babboon! Scared the crap out of me, that is for sure! I told Mia - she got really excited and wanted to buy me a drink, as did Marita since both of them knew how stressed out I was about the decision that I had to make. All in all though - it was an awesome vacation and I loved it. We have to leave by 5:30 tomorrow morning in order to be in Durban to catch our 11 AM flight back to Cape Town. I am going to miss this relaxation but I am looking forward to being home (meaning Cape Town - we have just begun to notice that Cape Town is now home to us). I cannot wait to come back to the Drakensburg mountains - they were my favorite part of the trip. I cannot wait for Amanda to come!!











So that is the end of the trip - our drive home was uneventful and arriving home was fairly uneventful as well. I have now gone back to work (but very sick because I have a respiratory cold) and besides being bit by an absolutely awful bug, I am doing well! I have officially accepted John Hopkins and once I get a $600 admission fee waived, I can fill out the paperwork. Once that is done and finalized, I am going to reject Uconn and UMD. I hope people will visit me in Baltimore next year!