Ride 'Em Cowboy and Cowgirl!

After an early morning drive to the Cape Town airport, a two-hour flight to Jo'burg, a torturous car rental, and a three and a half drive to Horizon, we arrive!  And before we even enter the gatehouse, we are greeted by the locals!!

This is our very first sighting of giraffes on this trip and we are absolutely gob-smacked!  We had heard that they can camouflage themselves and we thought - yeah right! - how do you camouflage a 20-foot tall creature with spots and then we saw the upper portion of the one here and we got it!

Isn't this a beauty!!  And then we pull into Horizon and wow oh wow -  this is where the one-tenth of the one percent come to vacation!!  We have the chalet - actually a very posh rondavel - on the lower left.  It's bigger than just about any rental we've ever had anywhere.

The total capacity of the property is 30 but there are only about 14 guests right now which makes for a very nice meal time, which we eat communally in the lodge.  But first, we're immediately whisked off for a 'sundowner', apparently de rigeur for every new guest as well as those who've been out on their afternoon ride.  And each day is a different locale.  Today's is atop a rocky outcrop where we snack, drink and watch the sun go down.

Those who rode to the sundowner have parked their mounts down below.  And, yes, me who is terrified of heights had yet another opportunity to overcome that by scrambling up those rocks!

Bright and early the next morning we are at the lodge for breakfast and shortly thereafter ready to mount up and ride off into the seemingly endless wilderness surrounding the property.

We've both asked for gentle, calm horses and given that Horizon has 91 horses (yes, 91) in their herd, that isn't going to be a problem.  And we are delighted to see that the saddles are actually quasi-western, modeled on the US cavalry saddles with actual cantles and a big horn-like thing to hang onto!  There are two rides a day, morning which can last up to four hours and afternoon which is about two hours.  Each ride has a guide who is trained and licensed in local animal life and flora who rides up front and a volunteer who brings up the rear.  We even have our own, personalized water bottle attached to the saddle, which has been specially chosen for our weight and height and we keep for our whole stay.

A number of guests have been here for a while and they are in the 'fast' group which means they do a lot of cantering and galloping.  Tim and I are most certainly not 'fast' - weren't even into galloping when we had horses!  We're quite happy to walk, do some trotting, and a little cantering and soak up this glorious part of Africa.

I put my camera in the saddle bag but, frankly, there weren't too many opportunities to take photos while riding!  On one of our stops with a guide who is straight out of central casting - we've dubbed him the Crocodile Dundee of Limpopo - Nancy, a sweet young volunteer fresh from the UK - takes a lovely shot of the two of us.

And Esve (aka Crocodile Dundee) has dismounted to pluck us a sample of one of the bush wonders.  I forget now whether it was bush toilet paper, bush soap plant, bush hand cream or bush analgesic but we had them all by the end of that ride.

Riding slow means we got to spot a lot more animals than we'd have seen galloping through the bush.  This big fella actually lives in the lake right in front of our chalet.  There is a very understated sign near the lake edge:  Hippos - Swim at Your Own Risk.  Really????

Horizon is also home to a few orphans including Tossie, an aging zebra who was drummed out of his herd because he was considered too old to keep up or be of much use.

He wanders happily around and occasionally will go and pay the horses a visit.   I didn't know that zebras can't be ridden because their backbones are not strong enough to support much more weight than that of a young child.

And a young owl is being nursed back to health after being discovered on the road with a broken wing.

Did I mention the food?  It is absolutely fabulous!!  We have three meals a day and tea early afternoon before the ride.  The rates include all the booze you can drink, and while Tim and I do not take advantage of the booze, it is a big part of the sundown stop.  I am amazed that anyone can drink gin and tonic and then gallop home!

Someone hauls this cooler and a supply of snacks to each sundowner location, and there are no shortage of takers for the beer, wine, gin, sodas, and water on offer.  I must admit, these cold drinks sure hit the spot after a long ride.  I am impressed that people can drink gin and tonics and then gallop home!!

This is truly an international guest list - our chalet neighbors are from the Netherlands, another couple is from the UK, a single guy from Australia, another from Sweden, and two women from Germany.

I'm so grateful to report that we both did really well on all our rides - namely, we didn't fall off, didn't injure ourselves, any of the other riders or the horses.  And the guides and volunteers graciously took us on slow rides - in fact, we had one or two other guests join us!  The weather was absolutely glorious for our whole stay and we made a fabulous new friend - Kirsty!

Kirsty is one of the administrators of Horizon, and we just had an instant bond over a long post-lunch conversation.  She and her partner have a standing invitation to visit us in the States.

All too soon our stay at Horizon is coming to an end, but we decide to forego the last afternoon ride and instead book a safari at the Waterberg Reserve.  And that's my next post!