Followers

Saturday 22 October 2011

Day 257: The Patron Saint of Cake (12/10/2011)


Clare said Gustavo was actually George Clooney.

I couldn´t see it myself but then again I have been seeing celebrities all over the world for the last year even though no one else believes me.

It can´t have been George anyway. 

He doesn´t have a beard… and he´s not called Gustavo.

What Gustavo does have are lovely horses. He picked us up from hostel Rio Del Pasado in his smart pick up and drove us into the rolling hills outside Cuenca. The Hacienda De Santa Martha De Tortellinas sits on the top of a large grassy knoll with white picket fences stretching to the edge of the valley in all directions.

I thought Santa Martha was the patron saint of some kind of delicious cake and that her hacienda would be the epicentre of Cuenca´s baked confectionary tradition but disappointingly Tortellinas are reeds, not tasty morsels.

I had to accept that today was about riding the horses but Gustavo did give us some nice crisps, so that kind of made up for the disappointment.

Some way back in their lineage, the four horses were part Palomino and part Spanish stock introduced by the Conquistadors. They looked, to all the world, like Mustang but regardless, they were handsome. Juvio (Rain), Guilla (Moon), Inty (Sun) and Volcano (Volcano) got dressed for the ride and kindly chose western saddles with a large handle...sorry, pommel... for us to cling to when things got hairy. 

Judging by the terrain, it was going to be pretty soon.

The walk from the yard was up an incline normally reserved for base jumping.

Soon it got a whole lot steeper.

Nothing improves your seat like falling off. Normally five feet is enough to drive the point home. Fifty feet seemed a little excessive.

We wound up slopes that left the ponies huffing and puffing and back down strange sand dunes that seemed to freak Inty out. Then again, he shied and reared at a selection of things such as a sleeping pig and some pebbles whilst wandering nonchalantly past a pack of baying dogs and a fruit truck pumping out rap music at a volume that started landslides in Peru.

Gustavo said there were bears along the trail but that they only ate Ecuadorians. The ponies didn´t seem to know this and were spooked by something during lunch. They tore free from their rope and only Gustavo´s quick thinking stopped them careering to the precipice.

It was a relief to leave the thick hilltop bush that the path wound through and return to the rolling grass land in the valley.

The views were beautiful but I couldn´t help feeling that it wouldn´t be long before an enterprising Ecuadorian opened a golf course here as most of the work had already been done by nature.

As we turned for home, the ponies had recovered from the morning hill climb and were ready to stretch their legs. We kicked them on and they sprung from a walk to a canter.

Before long the canter was lengthening. We were travelling faster than ever before on horseback. Clare whooped and I turned a shade of colour reserved for food poisoning. She turned to me with a big grin as we slowed for a moment.

“Shall we go again” was all she said.

We were off again and, having secured my seat, I embraced the fear and galloped after her as she streaked into the distance.

We arrived at the gates to the hacienda, panting as much as our horses and bubbling with a mixture of excitement and adrenalin.

Maybe Martha heard my prayer.

Cakes were waiting for us.

No comments:

Post a Comment