Caballos en la Noche

During our mountain climbing, Tamara did a little research on her other favorite thing in the world besides water: horses. When we stepped off the boat, Tamara came running over to us saying "let's go, let's go! I found a great price for a mountain tour on some horses!" Who was I to say no? At this point it was nearly dark, but the horse tours run night and day. Horses, like cows, are unbelievably prevalent in Argentina. Since their introduction to South America by the Spaniards, horses have run rampant throughout the countryside - mostly wild. The Native Americans, just like those in the States, adopted the animals and became exceptionally skilled with them. Of course, the horses we rode weren't wild, but it wasn't uncommon to see wild horses running through the mountains and across the roads.

Anyway, we get to the horses, and have some time to play around with them. Seeing as I have hardly any experience with horses (the only other time I've ever been on one was in Lujan - the zoo outside of Bs As) I'm still quite surprised by a lot of things. For example, I was really surprised to discover how tough and rope-like their hair is. It's not soft at all. However... in this particular collection of horses were a few baby horses. My favorite was a black-as-night little thing that was no taller than my shoulders. The baby horses had the softest fur ever, and we really curious. My favorite one keep sniffing me and using his lips to taste my fingers. At one point, I wasn't paying attention, and it bit me. I was left with something that looked curiously like a hickey on my arm, which still hasn't gone away.

After some time (remember, it's Argentina... everything takes time) we finally got on our horses and went off into the wilderness. At this point it was pitch black out except for a sky so full of stars it was practically white. I had always considered astrology to be a particularly boring field of study, especially since the constellations seemed to be so arbitrarily defined and totally pointless since half the time the stars weren't visible. This night, however, changed my mind. The milky way actually appeared as a white swath across the sky, and constellations like Orion suddenly made sense to me because the important stars are so wildly crystal clear, you HAVE to name them. Another interesting little factoid I noticed is that the constellations on this side of the equator are upside-down. I think I lucked out, however, because there was no moon that night - making the stars even more striking.

And so the horses walked through the mountains. We had to learn some techniques for balancing our weight as we went uphill or down, and I had to put an ungodly amount of trust in the animal since I couldn't see a thing that was happening on the ground. The horses were fine though. We traveled in a little line just like the Native Americans do in the movies, and the guides in the front and back of the lineup help up little oil lanterns. It's like I was transformed back to the 1800's. Definitely super cool.