A Horse in Any Other Language
I went on a horseback-riding trip on Sunday - we were supposed to go Saturday, but the trails were still too muddy after Friday's rains - and it proved to be a very...um...interesting experience. Mind, the last time I was on a horse was a good twelve years ago, and the time before that I was at summer camp in junior high.
(So yes, I'm all sorts of sore today. Basically, moving hurts. Typing hurts, if you really want to know.)
Anyway, despite the fact that (a) I'm not all that confident on a horse; (b) I didn't know what to expect on the trip; and (c) I'm seriously over-protective of my camera, I decided that the event would be an excellent opportunity to take pictures.
To spare you the suspense, my camera came home safely and without bruising. Sadly, the same cannot be said about me.
Anywho, following the example of the laudable here_be_dragons, who posts her photos directly to her LJ, I've got the ten pictures I liked the best here for your amusement.
The local culture, having nomadic ancestry, is very much a horse-centered people. It's not uncommon to see horses being used as a primary method of transport, even on the edges of the large cities. (Imagine someone riding their horse to school in Brooklyn!) Most of the larger stables, however, are located near the base of the mountains, where there's a lot of open land to let the horses graze, and few fences to keep them in.
Our guide, Ian, isn't local - he's French, and 24, and speaks very good English. (He's also unmarried. Hence the picture.) Ian's family owns the stables and the horses; during the summer they live in K and organize treks via horse over the mountain passes for tourists. During the winter, they do the same thing, but in Uruguay. Our 5-hour trek was the first of the season; once it warms up a little more, there will be approximately three treks a week, ranging from 2-hours to 10 days long. Interestingly enough, Ian has spent his entire life living overseas - Senegal, Uzbekistan, Brazil, and just about everywhere in between. His parents would sail from one port to the next, stopping long enough for their two children to take in a year of school and earn enough money to afford the next trip.
My horse being saddled for me - his name sounds something like Carmel, except in Russian. The saddles here are closer to English saddles than (American) Western saddles - no saddle horn, and hard as all get-out. This picture was taken shortly after lunch, about half-way through our day - you can make out the snowy mountains in the distance.
Carmel was a good horse, except towards the end of the trek, when we were going downhill. Now, I don't much like going down stairs - it's not that I'm afraid of heights, because I'm not. I mean, hey, I'm the one who was hanging off of the galleries at the Notre Dame and leaning over the edge at Burana Tower.
No, it's not heights that scare me. It's falling. Totally different kettle of fish.
So here I am, way up high on a mountain, and we're descending down a fairly steep path. Carmel is working his way down, which basically amounted to him struggling to keep footing on a still-muddy and not stable path, and in the meantime I'm clutching not only the reins and the front of the saddle for dear life. (I gripped that saddle so hard that today, the base of my thumb hurts today. Among other things.) If I look straight down, I can see nothing but mountain, and every bounce Carmel sends me on convinces me that I'm about to roll down the mountain to end crushed by horse at the bottom.
This goes on for about a hour. Straight.
They say that babies and animals can sort of sense how you're feeling, and I suppose Carmel had gotten the idea that I was getting more nervous by the second, and finally, after about a hour and fifteen minutes, he pretty much decided that it was very tedious letting me be in charge. So the first open area we reached, he starts off at a trot, overtaking both Ian and the local guide, who suddenly fall into flank formation on around me, with Ian clicking at Carmel the whole time. I wasn't sure what those clicks meant, but they sure weren't helping Carmel calm down, because first Carmel would turn one way, and then another, and jerk back around - paying no attention to me at this point - and suddenly WHAM! and Carmel was off like gangbusters, straight for the base of the mountain, with me unhappily along for the ride.
I'm not exactly sure what made Carmel stop, honestly - I don't think it was me pulling on the reins so hard I nearly fell over backwards, or yelling "STOP" at the top of my lungs, or any of the (very embarrassing to admit) girly shrieking I let out in between. But suddenly Carmel had stopped running, and Ian had jumped off his horse and had Carmel's lead in hand. Somehow, I managed to stay on - probably sheer panic - and when one of the other riders offered to switch horses with me, I wisely decided to stay where I was, under the theory that if I got off Carmel then, there was no way anyone would make me get on another horse again for the rest of the day.
(And we were still a good hour away from the stables at that point. Heck of a walk that would have been.)
So I spent the last hour of the trip with Carmel being led by Ian, which alleviated my freaking out considerably for some reason, partially due to the horse being somehow MUCH calmer knowing that the crazy lady sitting on top of him no longer had control.
Ian insisted that we wear chaps as we rode - R models her pair for me. Mine did not fit nearly as well.
We started out with the rest of the herd, alternatively leading or following them to their favorite grazing grounds at the base of the mountains. (Which technically are foothills, really, an arm of the Tien Shan mountain range in western China, leading up from the Himalayas.) At this point, we spied lots of other animals - cows and sheep and goats, mostly. Ian told us about a wolf that had been killed maybe three weeks previous by a local hunter near this area, and we even saw some foxholes. Higher up, we saw pheasants and other birds, but otherwise it was fairly empty.
We didn't realize it until we'd turn around - which was really more a function of the horse agreeing to let us turn around, but we were slowly ascending into the mountains. The higher we climbed, the better the view. It doesn't take very long to get to remote places in K, simply because the country is so sparsely populated to begin with. Once we began our ascent, we didn't see another human being until we were nearly finished with the trek.
The mountains are pockmarked with open fields, trickling rivers and dense vegetation. In fact, the vegetation was so dense at some points that I was worried I'd be knocked clean off Carmel entirely.
And considering my luck with Carmel, I'm sort of surprised it wasn't me who got knocked off her horse. Another member of the party was knocked off her horse by a very insistent tree, and she ended up flat on her back on the ground - except still attached to her horse, who happily stopped in his tracks. She was okay, but it was sort of hard to tell at first if she was laughing or crying, because while she lay there, one of the dogs that accompanied us was licking her face like it was the yummiest thing on earth, and so none of us were able to tell if she was smiling or not! Later, she asked why I didn't take any pictures of her - to which I responded, "Well, if you really were hurt, you wouldn't appreciate the photos, would you?"
And I ended up not taking any photos of the descent anyway, and between the number of trees that attacked us and Carmel running away, I figure it's just as well the camera was safely in its cushioned carrying case.
And I'm not even counting Carmel tripping and falling on his knees, which nearly sent me flying over his head. Carmel was okay - bit of dirt on his knees and nose, but no injuries. How I managed to stay on is anyone's guess, but I knocked my arm against either the camera case, the saddle, or something, because it's been hurting all day.
The dog that licked the face of our fallen comrade - a very happy dog, who was perfectly content to jump on your lap or pose for pictures as the situation warranted.
Our view of the mountains from where we camped for lunch. The snow stays on the highest peaks year-round - we continued traveling along the closest ones, making a giant circle until we returned to the stables.
Going up was MUCH better than going down; I don't know that I'd really be willing to take this trip again, just because the descent was so completely miserable, at least for me. But hey - I got a good picture of a dog out of it. *grin*
(So yes, I'm all sorts of sore today. Basically, moving hurts. Typing hurts, if you really want to know.)
Anyway, despite the fact that (a) I'm not all that confident on a horse; (b) I didn't know what to expect on the trip; and (c) I'm seriously over-protective of my camera, I decided that the event would be an excellent opportunity to take pictures.
To spare you the suspense, my camera came home safely and without bruising. Sadly, the same cannot be said about me.
Anywho, following the example of the laudable here_be_dragons, who posts her photos directly to her LJ, I've got the ten pictures I liked the best here for your amusement.
The local culture, having nomadic ancestry, is very much a horse-centered people. It's not uncommon to see horses being used as a primary method of transport, even on the edges of the large cities. (Imagine someone riding their horse to school in Brooklyn!) Most of the larger stables, however, are located near the base of the mountains, where there's a lot of open land to let the horses graze, and few fences to keep them in.
Our guide, Ian, isn't local - he's French, and 24, and speaks very good English. (He's also unmarried. Hence the picture.) Ian's family owns the stables and the horses; during the summer they live in K and organize treks via horse over the mountain passes for tourists. During the winter, they do the same thing, but in Uruguay. Our 5-hour trek was the first of the season; once it warms up a little more, there will be approximately three treks a week, ranging from 2-hours to 10 days long. Interestingly enough, Ian has spent his entire life living overseas - Senegal, Uzbekistan, Brazil, and just about everywhere in between. His parents would sail from one port to the next, stopping long enough for their two children to take in a year of school and earn enough money to afford the next trip.
My horse being saddled for me - his name sounds something like Carmel, except in Russian. The saddles here are closer to English saddles than (American) Western saddles - no saddle horn, and hard as all get-out. This picture was taken shortly after lunch, about half-way through our day - you can make out the snowy mountains in the distance.
Carmel was a good horse, except towards the end of the trek, when we were going downhill. Now, I don't much like going down stairs - it's not that I'm afraid of heights, because I'm not. I mean, hey, I'm the one who was hanging off of the galleries at the Notre Dame and leaning over the edge at Burana Tower.
No, it's not heights that scare me. It's falling. Totally different kettle of fish.
So here I am, way up high on a mountain, and we're descending down a fairly steep path. Carmel is working his way down, which basically amounted to him struggling to keep footing on a still-muddy and not stable path, and in the meantime I'm clutching not only the reins and the front of the saddle for dear life. (I gripped that saddle so hard that today, the base of my thumb hurts today. Among other things.) If I look straight down, I can see nothing but mountain, and every bounce Carmel sends me on convinces me that I'm about to roll down the mountain to end crushed by horse at the bottom.
This goes on for about a hour. Straight.
They say that babies and animals can sort of sense how you're feeling, and I suppose Carmel had gotten the idea that I was getting more nervous by the second, and finally, after about a hour and fifteen minutes, he pretty much decided that it was very tedious letting me be in charge. So the first open area we reached, he starts off at a trot, overtaking both Ian and the local guide, who suddenly fall into flank formation on around me, with Ian clicking at Carmel the whole time. I wasn't sure what those clicks meant, but they sure weren't helping Carmel calm down, because first Carmel would turn one way, and then another, and jerk back around - paying no attention to me at this point - and suddenly WHAM! and Carmel was off like gangbusters, straight for the base of the mountain, with me unhappily along for the ride.
I'm not exactly sure what made Carmel stop, honestly - I don't think it was me pulling on the reins so hard I nearly fell over backwards, or yelling "STOP" at the top of my lungs, or any of the (very embarrassing to admit) girly shrieking I let out in between. But suddenly Carmel had stopped running, and Ian had jumped off his horse and had Carmel's lead in hand. Somehow, I managed to stay on - probably sheer panic - and when one of the other riders offered to switch horses with me, I wisely decided to stay where I was, under the theory that if I got off Carmel then, there was no way anyone would make me get on another horse again for the rest of the day.
(And we were still a good hour away from the stables at that point. Heck of a walk that would have been.)
So I spent the last hour of the trip with Carmel being led by Ian, which alleviated my freaking out considerably for some reason, partially due to the horse being somehow MUCH calmer knowing that the crazy lady sitting on top of him no longer had control.
Ian insisted that we wear chaps as we rode - R models her pair for me. Mine did not fit nearly as well.
We started out with the rest of the herd, alternatively leading or following them to their favorite grazing grounds at the base of the mountains. (Which technically are foothills, really, an arm of the Tien Shan mountain range in western China, leading up from the Himalayas.) At this point, we spied lots of other animals - cows and sheep and goats, mostly. Ian told us about a wolf that had been killed maybe three weeks previous by a local hunter near this area, and we even saw some foxholes. Higher up, we saw pheasants and other birds, but otherwise it was fairly empty.
We didn't realize it until we'd turn around - which was really more a function of the horse agreeing to let us turn around, but we were slowly ascending into the mountains. The higher we climbed, the better the view. It doesn't take very long to get to remote places in K, simply because the country is so sparsely populated to begin with. Once we began our ascent, we didn't see another human being until we were nearly finished with the trek.
The mountains are pockmarked with open fields, trickling rivers and dense vegetation. In fact, the vegetation was so dense at some points that I was worried I'd be knocked clean off Carmel entirely.
And considering my luck with Carmel, I'm sort of surprised it wasn't me who got knocked off her horse. Another member of the party was knocked off her horse by a very insistent tree, and she ended up flat on her back on the ground - except still attached to her horse, who happily stopped in his tracks. She was okay, but it was sort of hard to tell at first if she was laughing or crying, because while she lay there, one of the dogs that accompanied us was licking her face like it was the yummiest thing on earth, and so none of us were able to tell if she was smiling or not! Later, she asked why I didn't take any pictures of her - to which I responded, "Well, if you really were hurt, you wouldn't appreciate the photos, would you?"
And I ended up not taking any photos of the descent anyway, and between the number of trees that attacked us and Carmel running away, I figure it's just as well the camera was safely in its cushioned carrying case.
And I'm not even counting Carmel tripping and falling on his knees, which nearly sent me flying over his head. Carmel was okay - bit of dirt on his knees and nose, but no injuries. How I managed to stay on is anyone's guess, but I knocked my arm against either the camera case, the saddle, or something, because it's been hurting all day.
The dog that licked the face of our fallen comrade - a very happy dog, who was perfectly content to jump on your lap or pose for pictures as the situation warranted.
Our view of the mountains from where we camped for lunch. The snow stays on the highest peaks year-round - we continued traveling along the closest ones, making a giant circle until we returned to the stables.
Going up was MUCH better than going down; I don't know that I'd really be willing to take this trip again, just because the descent was so completely miserable, at least for me. But hey - I got a good picture of a dog out of it. *grin*