Sunday, November 27, 2022

The Final Ride


I was in tears today.

The horse ride has lasted a week. There are seven other riders, including the lead guide, Marc, and his adjutant Carlos who brings up the rear of the file. Two of the riders I've ridden with before: Sharon in Turkey and Susan in both Turkey and Mongolia. Endurance riding in foreign countries is kind of a niche thing to do, so there aren't that many organising outfits and inevitably you meet up with some of the same people again, even ten years later. 

As always, I'm the least experienced rider. Horse people tend to be dedicated to the lifestyle, for reasons beyond me and the scope of a blog post, but not least because it is no small effort to own and care for a horse. In any case, I'd estimate my hours in the saddle at about a hundred. None of the other riders would be able to count theirs.

So I'm always open to and asking for tips. This is a tricky business, because horse riding is quite a subtle exercise and all the things you need to do are remembered in different ways by different people, who find some tips more meaningful than others. Do you keep your heels down or your toes up? Do you balance in the canter with your knees or your thighs? Is manipulating the bit with the reins like cradling a bird or like squeezing an avocado in the shop? Learning is parsing what people tell you and deciding whether or not to take it on board. You can't listen to everything because some of it seems to contradict, there are different styles of riding (Western vs English, for example) and indeed different riders will have different ideas. I've even heard some horse people described as bitchy; you can imagine conflicts of opinion over something they care deeply about. 

Not these riders, though. We are a team. All week I've been accruing tips from the others, and the last day would be our biggest ride—8-9 hours in the saddle. Marc warned me it would be a tough day, even for the experienced riders, but he had confidence I could do it. There were a few things I needed to be mindful of, such as my balance in the canter and my posting in the trot as we'd be covering a lot of ground, but I could do it.

We were up at 6am with the crowing roosters to hit the trail by eight. Our first day riding (not counting familiarisation time with our horses, mine being the hardy Criollo paint El Greco) was almost as long as this one would be, perhaps seven hours, but was a bit gentler with more time out of the saddle leading the horses on foot over steep terrain. 

At the end of that day my right ankle was really sore. This is a strange place to be sore from riding and led us to consider my stirrup length. Different riders are different shapes with different length legs and different riding preferences (not to mention different tack on different horses), so adjusting stirrup length is routine. But for seven hours of ignorance I unknowingly rode with not only my stirrups too short but one shorter than the other. This was easily resolved on the second day with a length that relieved my long legs and gave me much better contact with the horse, but I suffered the recovering ankle for the rest of the ride. 

Like every other day we ride single file, out of rural towns along the road edge where countless restaurants and cafes abut the road—there is no kerb or pedestrian space—where dogs constantly harangue our well-trained horses that never spook; into thick jungle that encroaches on the road, sometimes nearly taking it over; up constructed horse trails amid coffee plantations and into the slick Andean jungle proper. 

Then we hit our first big hill. To take us to the top we tackle it with a canter to gather momentum. This would be my test, a culmination of all the things I've learned and the tips I've collected, my chance to prove Marc's faith in me and to give back to the team with my competence to keep up with them. Not that this is my first canter, nor ours as a team, but it's my least practised gait. 

Everything shifts into a different position and up we go. I keep my heels aligned below my ears to maintain balance in the saddle, while simultaneously pitching my weight gently forward over the withers so not to deadweight the horse. I'm last in the file but for Carlos, and the clatter of hooves in front of me tattoos a satisfying rhythm in the jungle, urging us on. "Come on, Greco! Yah, yah!" I encourage. He gives so much. We keep up, I keep up, clatta-ta clatta-ta clatta-ta, pressing, spurring him on... and then, halfway up the long, steep hill, I tip forward and our balance goes off. His canter breaks. The rest of the team races away as El Greco is reduced by gravity to a walk.

I'm devastated. The hill is so steep I can't get him back up, even into a trot. Carlos stays with me, but we step, step, step up the long grade with the sound ahead of racing hooves disappearing away into silence. It's awful. I've cruelled the pitch. Events overtake me.

It's ages before we see the top of the hill where all have stopped to wait for me. I'm crushed low to see them. I'm so disappointed in myself and I've let the team down. I'm apologetic. I try to explain.

Of course, no one thinks anything of it but it's a good hour before I manage to regain my composure. I keep back in the queue and pull up my bandana to mask my face and my welling eyes. This upsurge of emotion surprises me. It's been a hard week, this is a hard day, we've all been through so much together, and I am really trying. I've let Greco down; he can do it, but I can't. 

Down the other side of the mountain we descend, leaning back in the saddle to shift our weight for the horses. It's so steep it's precarious, but Greco is sensible and the horses are sure-footed, despite the occasional slip. 

After half an hour of this we level out and rejoin a trafficked rural road. The occasional vehicle lumbers past us, tooting its horn, and intermittent motorcycles race behind them. But suddenly we approach them again from behind, backed up, with drivers out of their trucks milling about, looking down over a lip where the road falls away. It's a washout. The road is gone. The mountainside has taken it out. It seems an ongoing battle between constructed roads and sodden mountains here. As we get close to the edge we see down into the maw of the abyss (as we all afterwards refer to it); looking back at us is a truck stuck on the rise, driver's head out the window. No one believes that the five or six men (locals, it turns out, there for the afternoon entertainment) on a half-inch rope tied to the front of the truck are going to accomplish anything. But with it over their shoulders like the winning leg of a tug-of-war, they crest the lip of the abyss at a run, big smiles on all their faces. Up comes the truck. 

For horses, it's no problem. We dismount, guide them through the throng of vehicles and people, ably aided by Pete from our logistical support crew who turns up in the work truck looking authoritative in orange vest wielding a "PASEO" (slow) sign.

An hour or two later in a sudden but regular late afternoon rain we finally arrive at the stables where we will say goodbye to our horses. We dismount, untack, and Marc approaches me... to congratulate me on my performance. I lament to him my failure on the hill and he reassures me; he says even he, with all his experience, sometimes loses his balance in a canter. I didn't let down anyone. I kept up, controlled my horse, and we arrived on time. I should be pleased, he says, at the day's accomplishment. It was a hard ride, even for the experienced.

I go to say goodbye to Greco. I wrap my arms around his neck and I can barely keep from blubbering. They give so much, Marc says, and he's right. Greco worked so hard, for me, for what I asked him to do. You really forge a bond because of the hard work you do together. After all, the zenith of good riding is to become one with the horse.

I go to my room, get in the shower stall, turn on the water and, in my first moments alone, it all comes out: all I can do is bawl. A full release of the whole day's emotions. I'm proud of myself, humbled by the challenge, relieved at the success and sad it's all over... it's all too much. My sobbing tears merge with the water streaming down my face.

I did it.

Friday, November 25, 2022

Horse riding is hard

I'm not a beginner at this. I've done it before—endurance riding in Turkey and Mongolia, a week or two each time. Eight years has elapsed since then, so in preparation for Colombia this time I kept up my running fitness and got some practice in the ring to rebuild my confidence. 

It's important to have confidence on a horse. The horse needs to know you're the boss. And the first thing it will typically do is find out if you are. It will try to do what it wants rather than what you want, by going slow, eating grass, or choosing the direction. This is the first test of firm and just confidence.

Engage the horse. It is not a car. You're not a passenger. This is not a pony ride at the Easter Show. If you're not engaging with the horse on every single step then you're not riding. When you drive, do you take your hands off the wheel and your feet off the pedals? Riding horses needs a similar amount of attention, and actually more. 

The horse's bit (that piece of hinged metal in its mouth) should always be engaged, gently, with the reins. Just like keeping a car in gear; coasting in neutral is dangerous, isn't it? But more than this, horses are not machines. They are individuals with personalities as varied as dogs and people, are of different ages with different energies, and they are social creatures with a dynamic language between them that you need to read—language that includes kicking and biting. 
 
The idea is not to allow this or foment it, and to prevent it with awareness by not crowding them. Be the boss to whom the horse listens. And to be that you need to be competent and confident, and also kind, not brutal. If you bond with the horse and be likeable so it likes you, it will give all you ask of it. Perhaps some cruel riders could disagree on that point and insist you can dominate a horse with discipline—which indeed is also necessary—but to my mind (and to most riders) the horse will give more when asked to a kindly rider than to one that whips it with a riding crop.

This is the third and hardest endurance ride I've done. Every ride is different, for so many factors, but what makes this one so hard is the control. Unlike in Mongolia, where the horses are half wild and the landscape is a wide and vast steppe that invites wandering recces, this is a very controlled ride—up steep mountains and down into narrow valleys, single file on narrow jungle paths and rural road edges, not uncommonly with cars or motorcycles passing within feet and dogs shooting out randomly, barking and snapping.

You need correct posture and to adjust it with the terrain; to be aware of your shoulders, which will turn the horse; to control the pace and not allow the horse to decide it; and to maintain tight contact with the horse through your legs, your pelvis, and the bit.

And this is all just at a walk. At a trot you need to post—rhythmically rising in the saddle with the gait—and you need to time this with the horse's pace so you don't stall the trot. (The exception here is with the Colombian Paso Fino blooded horses, ridden by some more experienced riders in the group, which have a different gait that smooths the trot and eliminates the need to post.) At a canter you need to be up out of the saddle and rolling fluidly with the horse, holding yourself in position and balancing with bent knees as the horse "rolls" under you like a sea swell.

It is a workout. You need to be fit, with strong core muscles and strong leg muscles, the latter of which are a different set than a human seems to usually use. This, to beginners, is a sore and surprising discovery the following day. 

And actually, not only to beginners.

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Resorts are stupid

Cancún. Famous for being a resort town. The stunning 25km-long narrow isthmus separating the lagoon from the sea is named the Hotel Zone, for the blatant reason that one resort abutting another claims its ocean frontage there as far as the beach will stretch. It must have once been a place of incredible natural beauty before it was so exploited. 

Did you know that there are no bodies of water on the entire Yucatán peninsula? No rivers, no lakes, only cenotes—deep limestone sinkholes full of water that are unique to Yucatán (thought to be a geological result of the Chicxulub meteor that struck what is today the neighbouring Gulf of Mexico, wiping out the dinosaurs). Cenotes were sufficient for the original population of Maya but can't sustain all these luxury resorts. I believe water is piped into the peninsula and that water shortages are common. Teeming throngs of tourists flock here to sit on their fat arses and be pampered. It's not travel. It's barely tourism, and it's frankly tasteless.

I'm on a layover to Costa Rica from Oaxaca. What a contrast it is with that poorest of Mexican states second only to Chiapas. I figured I'd try a resort for one night en route, but it's hard for the Solonaut to enjoy it.

My first experience here is one of lost luggage. My second is price gouging. Getting out of the airport and to—well, anywhere—is subject to the taxi monopoly. Numerous companies compete with one another for the business, but conspire to keep the price extortionate—MX$850 (about US$50) for a 10km trip, down from MX$950 when I complained it was ridiculous. Hey, stupid gringos, right? They all give the same answer: "It's because it's so busy!" Bullshit. This gringo is no greenhorn.

At the resort, there is pumping music at the pool area facing the beach. This shortly mutates into a kind of lame name-that-tune pub quiz for old morons. There are four or five teams soaking in the pool while the MC plays the first five seconds of hit songs you need to identify. Whitney Houston, Queen, AC/DC—nothing strenuous or beyond the 1980s.

Over at the towel bar is a billboard promoting the program of events, like a cruise ship needing to entertain its trapped passengers. Rising cynicism keeps me from reading it. Walking to my room I receive a look from a young pretty thing I haven't had since sitting at a pick-up bar. Is this part of the resort appeal? Hook-ups for singles? This really is a foreign place.

Everywhere it's nothing but coddling and pampering. Spoiled indulgence. Drinks served to your beach lounge chair. Massages. Spa. Whatever service you need.

For readers who haven't twigged, I have an active dislike of this. Opulence and luxury. Don't baby me. I want to take some responsibility for the things I do. Of course I don't deny help and I appreciate assistance for the culturally ignorant traveller that one always tends to be, but I want to deflect touts, fend off pickpockets, and make mistakes. I want to muddle my way through the language, get lost and do as a local does. I want to get my hands dirty. 

Here in Cancún, they'll bloody well wash your hands for you.

Friday, November 11, 2022

Luggage

I'm not sure I'm enjoying this.

Bloody Volaris Airlines. First, two weeks before my flight out of Oaxaca, they cancel it and propose an alternative four days later—um, no thank you?—requiring me to research and book new routes while I'm on the road. That cancelled flight was direct to Cancun, where I would stay in transit as a staging post for one non-refundable night at a resort I booked (more on that later). So, trying to preserve some of my spent money, I book new flights with my Volaris credit to get to Cancun via Mexico City—two flights now, so more expensive. Had I known this a month ago I'd have just booked a night in Mexico City in the first place, en route to my next destination, Costa Rica.

Okay, so Oaxaca is pretty crazy with tourists at the moment. It's the day after the week-long celebrations have ended for the first big post-lockdown Day of the Dead, and at 6.30am the small Oaxaca City airport is completely overrun. Volaris has only a handful of staff, insufficient to handle the volume. Though I've already checked in online, it still takes me 90 minutes in the queue to reach the overworked woman at the counter and check my backpack. The flight is to Mexico City; I tell her my destination is Cancun. She tells me point blank my luggage is going to Mexico City. She needs to process all the passengers, my flight is about to leave, and frankly we are both just concerned with getting me on it. I don't have time to argue. I turn and run to the security queue.

Forget it. It's the same 90-minute queue I just finished. Impossible! I am missing my flight.

Then the Volaris ground crew reappear. They've checked everyone; now they are pulling passengers from the queue to speed them through security. The flight is late! Rapido! Rapido! Unprepared for security I scramble everything into the screening bin but my belt, so I keep setting off the scanner when I am told repeatedly to walk through it. Dumping more out of my pockets—paper money, wallet, passport—until we finally realise it's my belt. I clear it, grab my carry-on and sprint to the gate... but I've left my wallet and money and passport back at the scanner. Gah!

So, finally aboard, I next need to concern myself with my backpack that is being offloaded at Mexico City. The flight has been delayed. How am I going to make my connecting flight, let alone retrieve and recheck my own luggage?

Talking to the air crew I learn that my connecting flight is the very same plane with the same crew. We are delayed, yes, but all I need do is disembark, "transfer" and get back on. I'm already checked in. Great! But my luggage?

I'm told to speak to Customer Service as I get off the plane. I explain to one of the ground crew and am understood, but my Spanish is insufficient for me to fully understand the response. No entiendo, I say, so out comes Google Translate on her phone. In writing, the Volaris crew member tells me:

"I will collect your luggage for you."

This, readers, I advise you, is a bald-faced lie. Like the ground crew in Oaxaca, she is only concerned with getting the plane in the air.

When once flying Turkish Airlines, I found myself in a similar situation, transiting at Sarajevo. I was assured by a crew member from whom I sought help at the transfer counter that he would personally collect and check my luggage for my second flight. I was very impressed with that offer of service until I touched down at my destination empty-handed. When I reported my lost luggage and explained what the crew member had said, the staff member told me—with no surprise registering on her face whatsoever—"Don't believe them."

Am I to believe this Volaris "Customer Service"? I repeat to her: "YOU will collect my luggage for me?" Sí, she confirms. I am suspicious. I rush away to find the transfer desk and the fellow there waves me through quickly as the flight is boarding. The security queue is mercifully short (this is Mexico City's second airport, Santa Lucia). I find myself last to board and on the gangway I spy the Volaris crew member who assured me of her help. On my phone so it is crystal clear, I type and ask: "Did you check my luggage onto this flight?" Sí, she confirms.

And here I am in Cancun with no luggage.

Don't believe them.

Wednesday, November 09, 2022

Mexicans

In some quarters—probably over the border in places like Arizona and Texas, and perhaps less so now than once before but nonetheless—there is a stereotype of the "lazy Mexican". Nothing could be further from the truth.

I have said this before and I stand by it: Mexicans are the most entrepreneurial people I have ever met. They sell everything and anything everywhere. When the Greeks and Spaniards were complaining in 2008 about austerity measures and lack of work in the wake of the global financial crisis, I remember a woman in Mexico City saying to me, "I don't understand it. Why don't they just go out and sell something?" This encapsulates the phenomenon for me. What's the problem? If you want to work, get to work!

But Mexico is not Greece or Spain or anywhere else. Regulating work opportunities here as the EU does would seem to me an impossible task. If a Mexican wants to sell snacks or pens or handicrafts on the street, she simply does so. It looks like a healthy kind of anarchy of leaving everyone to just get on with it. No one is stopping you—get out there and make something of it!

In fact, it turns out this is a naïve view. While true that the federal government has limited reach into the street, this doesn't mean liberty for regular people. As always happens in hierarchies of power, intermediary groups represent and exploit. Unions demand payments for retail space on the kerb. There have been annual teacher strikes for umpteen years, every May. It's clearly a situation of complexity not easily described. 

A Japanese woman and fellow solonaut I met in Oaxaca made the observation that, in fact, the Mexicans are not only hard working but that they work TOO hard. I don't agree with this contention either. I challenged her that the Japanese are themselves known for working too hard, by tales of sleeping in the office overnight and the preponderance of capsule hotels in Tokyo. She considers this, then says that is more about dedication to the corporation and less an expression of personal motive. Mexicans, on the other hand, are, independently, actively hawking wares morning till night, and with their children too, no less. 

First, I must preface that we are here in high season in Oaxaca with the tourists, so of course they are out morning till night to fish the teeming waters, earning perhaps half their year's wages in the week preceding the Day of the Dead. But this aside, I would argue that Mexicans in fact have a better understanding of the place of work in our lives than many of us.

Viktor Frankl's logotherapy—the Third Viennese School of psychotherapy, together with those of Freud and Adler—holds that what is central to human life (as distinct from resolving neuroses per Freud, or actuating power per Adler) is MEANING. To live for something or someone. To have a reason. Many of us in the modern West, to be sure, are lost on this front. There are several common paths to finding it, most obvious being parenting and raising good children; it is a question of living with purpose. We each find our own unique purpose, but generally speaking, the purpose is to be useful, even necessary, to the thing we care about, whether it's our plumbing business or the forest grove under our study and protection or the symphony we are writing. If we work or create for our own purposes, if we work for ourselves and not merely for the benefit of the corporation, are we not closer to living a meaningful life? Is it not a healthier space to find ourselves in, where the meaning of work in our lives might be clearer, more integrated, without exploitation? None of this is to say it is easy—Life is struggle—but to live with a responsibility we choose, we emerge happier. 

Oaxaca, as most of southern Mexico, is a poor region; there is no shortage of poverty in Mexico. And while not to underestimate its impact, Mexicans are not only entrepreneurial and hard-working but—for all the perils of saying so—they are happy.