Colonia Del Sacramento, Uruguay
Trip Start
Jun 15, 2008
1
9
102
Trip End
Jun 14, 2009
Colonia del Sacramento,
Uruguay
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Well we left Buenos Aires by ferry "Buquebus" for Uruguay yesterday. the crossing was an hour long, the estuary was calm and the sun was shining so things were looking up. Colonia Del Sacramento is a lovely quiet old town with nice architecture and friendly people.
It took us a while to find our way to our hostel the Posada Del Bosque as it is about 3K outside town but the place was nice and clean. The place is run by a very nice elderly couple that donīt speak a word of English. After we checked in we walked back into the town, had lunch and walked around for a while. Later on we climbed up to the top of a lighthouse that they have here and watched the sunset over the estuary.
Today we decided that the town was a bit far to walk to so we hired a moped for about 10 euro for the whole day. It was hilarious, a guy came to the hostel with the moped for us (again not a word of English), Dermot had to ask him to demonstrate how to drive the moped, The poor fellow looked terified when we drove off with it as we obviously hadnīt a clue what we were doing!
After making it to the town safely and parking the moped we decided to see if we could go horse-riding somewhere. We were directed to another hostel that organises horseriding trips. We set off in a kind of a small open back truck with another English couple for the countryside at about 10.30. We were each given a horse and we set off. The route we took was about 10k long and it was georgous. We went through vineyards, fields with cacti and pampas grass and along 2 beaches. On the way back Dermot managed to knacker his horse. The poor horse was so exhausted after carrying Dermot for 4 hours that he just gave up and wouldnīt move. One of the guys with us had to swap horses with Dermot.... that was Sarahīs version of events now mine! after switching horses i felt liike the Outlaw Jose Wales as my horse was so fast it was like their was a possey after me.
When we were about 400m from the ranch thatīs when the real drama of the day started.... Sarah decided her horse was not going fast enough for her liking and after 4 or so hours she started getting cocky so in true Calamity Jane fashion she started hitting her horse and making vocal gestures to coincide with increasing the pace. The poor critter was also tired so refused to react to Sarahīs gestures but then when Sarah wasnīt expecting it the horse started to giddy-up a bit. Sarah hadn.t been holding on properly and was thrown from the horse!! she landed on the ground hard on her back and as it happened so fast the horse behind her came up and stood over her with its legs either side of her limp body on the road. I was about 100m ahead when the shout went out from the others so when i turned around Sarah was lying flat on the ground not moving. I dismounted and ran/hobbled back to help her and the whole time she wasnīt moving-i thought she was paralysed or worse. As i got near i could see she was moving fingers so things were looking up! The guides had to hold the front legs of the horse as i slid Sarah out from under him. Sarah was very shaken up but much better than i would have been in the circumstances ( i.e no ambulances or X ray were called to the scene). We walked back to the ranch and the guides gave us a lift to the Infirmary in the town where Sarah was seen to straight away. The Doctor had very little English but he knew he overstepped the mark when he said "Oh you are British!"-after looking at our passports. He gave a fairly good examination of Sarah and was satisfied that there was nothing broken but there was muscle damage in her lower right back. He asked did she want a pain killer to which she said yes - presuming it would be given orally (she presumed wrong!!) Out came the needle, a big feckoff needle, Sarah exposed the region she thought he would be injecting i.e her back but no the doc wanted to give it in the ass!! When we came out of the surgery the guides had already paid the bill and insisted on giving Sarah her money back for the horse riding.(more than likely because they were terrified that we would sue or something!).
