On Saturday I was invited to join some of my Egyptian colleagues, Amira and Rania, on a Horseback riding trip in Giza. Giza is on the outskirts of Cairo and it is where you’ll find the most well known pyramids of Egypt.
Amira is an experienced rider and also invited a couple of her fellow experienced riding friends: Achmed and Kareem. Chinwe is my American colleague who had to catch a flight out that evening. She wasn’t quite sure about joining us, but for those of you that know me, you know that I love to manipulate people in to joining group activities by whatever means necessary. I chose the trash talk method, which for those of you that know me know: its just talk. I started bragging to Chinwe about how I was this great rider and since she’s older than me she’d probably lose the race. I know, I’m terrible…but it worked.
The truth is that I took some English saddle lessons for a few months when I was a kid but I’m waaay over-confident. When we arrived in Giza I told our horse guide to give me the fastest horse he had. “Give me the Mercedes of all your horses,” I said, and his name was “Cowboy.”
I quickly realized that English saddle is rarely used for practical riding purposes and “Cowboy” most certainly had not been trained for the likes of my “sophisticated” style. However, Cowboy WAS trained!
All the horses were trained to ignore their rider and only listen to the trainer. This makes total sense, since most of the riders are inexperienced foreigners who could very easily give the wrong signal and wind up in a dangerous situation.
We were accompanied by three guides and unbeknownst to myself we were divided into 2 groups: the “Experienced” and the “Joy Riders.” We calmly rode through the streets and into a small village with narrow dirt lanes and apartment buildings on either side. Colorful laundry hung on lines out the windows along with signs offering the passerby a variety of methods of touring via horses, camels, or chariot. It was an odd mix of commercial and residential as children played and women tended to their household casually acknowledging the caravan passing by. I had to tease Chinwe when one of her guides, a boy about 8 years old, trotted down the street holding her reigns.
The scenery began to thin and then the hooves hit the sand. I was anxious to run. But at this point I still foolishly thought I was in control. ‘Snap!’ ‘Snap!’ the guide cracked his whip and the four of us were off on a gallop leaving Chinwe and the Joy Riders in the dust.
On one hand, it was absolutely exhilarating to be galloping along with a group of people as if I really knew what I was doing, but then on the other I remembered that I didn’t. I quickly realized that I had ‘no’ control over the speed at which the horse moved which explained why my earlier attempts to “giddy-up” had produced nothing more than a skip. My riding plan developed in 3 stages. 1.) Try not to look inexperienced 2.) Ok, just DON’T fall off! 3.) OMG! Live! Must….Live!
The stirrups were too long and at one point both my feet were out completely as Cowboy was running at top speed. I clenched as tightly as I could to stay on and focused on the only thing I had any control over which was steering.
Something else you should know is that in the pictures, those sand dunes look so smooth and silky soft. However, in real life its more like chunky peanut butter…EXTRA chunky. The chunks being rocks. Hard rocks.
We made it to the top of one of the dunes where there was a small shack and blocks stacked to make a fence like enclosure. It wasn’t much but apparently it was our stopping point as everyone demounted. I was trying not to let on how incredibly difficult that was for me but I was grateful to get off the horse even though I wasn’t too steady on my feet. It was hot and I was exhausted and sore already. From somewhere inside the shack they produced cold drinks but what I really needed was some “junk in my trunk.”
Fifteen minutes later the Joy Riders moseyed their way to the top. It really was an incredible view. Surrounded by rocky dunes, topped with a blue sky and THE pyramids.
Much to my surprise Amira translated that the guide was very impressed with my riding. I think he was just impressed that I didn’t fall off, as was I! I hinted as much as my pride would allow that we should take it easy on the way back, and I tried to join the Joy Riders but Cowboy was clearly programmed for my guide because just the sound of the whip sent him and the rest of us off in a rumble.
The good news is I made it back safely with a wonderful memory as well as incredibly sore inner thighs.
1 comment:
hilarious! thanks for the post. :)
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