Yawar Mayu

I was relieved to get off the bus. It had been swaying through the Peruvian countryside for about an hour, making my breakfast feel a little less than secure. Relieved to get off the bus and into a taxi with a local campesina riding in the hatchback, voluminous skirt, fedora-esque hat and all. Our Peruvian Paso horses were waiting for us by the colonial church in the town of Maras. Waiting with them was an old man in a green felt hat with a crinkly smile. Our guide, Alvisu, introduced us to the horses; Inti (the sun god) and Tobias (I liked to call him Toby) were Victoria and Marla´s mounts. Mine was the beauty of the bunch; a rich bay with a handsome face named Yawar Mayu. Soon we were riding out of Maras, smiling and laughing at the thrill of riding horses... in Peru! To our right, farmland sloped down to plunge into a steep valley whose other side rose abruptly in rugged green peaks. Our path was a dirt track bordered by american agave; winding up and down, in and out of little canyons.Winding out of little canyons and into rolling, tree-less grassland. We waved to farmers, hunched over their crops, as we approached the ruins of Moray. A light, sunny rain was falling.

We dismounted and stared into the deep, amphitheater-like ruin. Built in a meteor crater, the Incas used Moray as an experimental agricultural centre. There is a difference of about a degree Celsius betwen each terrrace; the ones at the bottom once grew coca, which normally only grows in the jungle! The ruin is beautiful; such perfect circles ringed in green. Alvi stayed with the horses while the girls and I descended into the ruins down the steeper-than-they-looked-from-above Inca stairs. I introduced Kyla and Dylan to Marla and Victoria, which made them laugh... they loved the idea. Climbing back out from the very lowest terrace took a TON of energy. An old peruvian man told me to breathe through my nose, which I´m sure would have been very helpful if I wasn´t so congested and physically able to follow his advice. He thought I just didn´t understand Spanish.

We found Alvi and our noble steeds and bridled them back up (just the steeds, not Alvi) to head for our picnic spot. We lunched in the shade of a grove of trees next to an abandoned mud-brick house with a wide view of the valley. From Yawar Mayu´s saddlebags Alvi produced a salad of cooked cauliflower, carrots and beans, bread, cold chicken, yucca and chicha morada. All delicious, even the cauliflower.While we ate Alvi told us that the house belonged to his family and how he dreamed of turning it into a guest ranch. When I went around the front of the house to take some pictures the mountains ahead and to the left pulled me like a magnet. I walked and ran as far towards the "edge" as I thought I could without getting separated from my group. A local man with a cowboy hat on his head and a dog at his side was contemplating the view from a few hundred metres ahead of me. I snapped a few photos, took a deep breath and reluctantly returned to my friends.

Riding on, we quickly noticed the horses´ distinct personalities... Inti was deadset on following our guide horse (even when he tried to pull aside for a picture) and would cut everyone off to be second in line. Toby was pretty lethargic, yet he too wanted to walk ahead of the others. Yawar Mayu was the only one who didn´t mind bringing up the rear, but because Toby would walk so slowly we always ended up tailgating him massively. Consequentially, my left knee was nearly pooped on... twice. I would have rather ridden out front.

The rest of the day was a blur of hoofbeats, sunshine and countryside. People working in the fields would stop to stare at us or call out a "buenas tardes". And a buena tarde it was; drinking in the scenery (think green fields in the foreground and glacier draped mountains in the background), singing and laughing with my group and breathing in the fresh country air. How epic is it to ride through the peruvian highlands on a beautiful horse whose name means "Blood River" in Quechua? The Paso horses gait is famously smooth, but we had to work to keep them moving that way rather than bouncing us around like sacks of potatoes. 6 hours on a horse is a long time. By the time we rode into Chinchero I was getting almost unbearably sore and cold. The most comfortable and (to me) natural parts of the ride were the brief minutes we sped up to a canter along the more level stretches of red earth road. By the end of the day I was more relieved to get off the horse than I had been to get off the bus. All of us, Alvi included, were completely knackered and dozed the whole (freezing cold) taxi ride back into Cusco. I came home from my day of riding feeling like I´d been run over by a bus. Sore muscles? Check. Bruises? Check. Sunburn? Check. Nasty cold? Check.
It´s not a day well spent unless you have battle wounds, right?

Con amor,
Julia