An American, a Colombian, an Ecuadorian, and a Trinidad and Tobago-an walk into a bar. They park their horses outside…
Except there is no bar, and they never parked their horses. Hell there isn’t even such thing as Trinidad and Tobago, I just made that up!
Or did I? OR DID I!??
Horseback riding, something I had tried once–and HATED–suddenly seemed like a good idea. Perhaps it was the fact that I was in Colombia, and I hadn’t yet met my quota of dumb shit needed to do whilst on vacation. Or perhaps it’s because looking at horse hard-ons is kind of a thing of mine. Perhaps the ceiling of my room is even littered with horse penises from all across the globe–with shapes, sizes, colors, textures, even flavors (yes manufacturing scratch-and-sniff on photo paper is easier than you would think) of all kinds–so I can lay down on my bed with my lotions and go to my happy place without cramping up in my lumbar. Or perhaps it was because my vacation buddy “The Queen” had never ridden a horse and expressed interest. It’s probably one of those reasons.
We had been travelling around Colombia for a couple of weeks, and presently found ourselves in Salento, one of three cities belonging to the so-called “Coffee Triangle”. The bus from Medellin to here was six straight hours driving so bad, we drunkenly waltzed along the thin little line of life and death. We celebrated our survival with a day trip to the bordering small mountainous region called the Valle de Cocora, which is Spanish for “Hell Mountain.” Or something… Wait, Google Translate is telling me it means “Valley of the Cocora”…
COCORA ISN’T FUCKING ENGLISH, GOOGLE TRANSLATE. GET SOME FUCKING BRAINS.
When we disembarked in the valley, a bungle of Colombian cowboys started trying to illicit us into renting horses. Or maybe they meant for us to blow lines of cocaine off the horse’s assholes, a few gestures may have been misunderstood on one or both ends…
The valley here is known for having the tallest palm trees in the world. Most tourists roam the grounds for minutes on end, before finally exclaiming “yaaay palm trees” and going home to play The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX on their Game Boy Color. That was my plan, at least. I look over my shoulder and The Queen is haggling with some guy over the horses. A dude from Ecuador and his coworker/lover from Trinidad and Tobago (no seriously, it’s actually a country, I shit you not) want some horse action too, and before you know it the four of us are 12 dollars poorer and riding on these giant fugly beasts they call “caballos“.
A cowboy is dispatched to escort us through the valley. He walks on foot alongside us. He generally encourages the horses, through a combination of whistles and horse-whispering, to stay in line and not run off into another galaxy with us still on board. It’s going fairly well. A bit bumpy, if you know what I mean (yes, doing lines off the horse’s mane while riding uphill does present logistical challenges). Ten minutes into the ride, I take out The Queen’s tablet to photograph the picture-perfect moment of us crossing through a shallow little stream.
I used to see people photographing with iPads and shit, and really loathed those people. “Get a camera,” I would scream (silently). Now, I have a kind of newfound respect for them; that shit is retardedly difficult. So now I’m intently trying to figure out how to take a photograph on The Queen’s tablet in one hand, gripping the horse with the other, my vision obstructed by an intense glare from the sun, and that’s when I see it: a giant brown pole-like thing coming zipping out of nowhere, which then makes heavy, painful contact with my leg.
I looked up, bewildered. What… the fuck was that!??
I look up and see The Queen’s horse putting his leg down. It dawns on me.
“I just got kicked by a horse.”
Let me explain something. You’ve probably seen in movies when a horse kicks somebody and then the person goes flying like seventeen feet in the air. You think that shit is exaggerated? It is not. Horses can kick the head right off of a baby. And I had just been socked in the leg by one of those brutish, meaty rods of death.
I waited a few seconds for someone to react. For the cowboy to pull out a revolver and fire six bullets into the horse’s belly. But I was in the back of the line. Nobody saw it. Even The Queen didn’t realize that her own horse had delivered a giant blow to the rear.
I presume that the horse wasn’t aiming for me. I was just “Collateral Damage” (man what an underrated flick!). It was most likely aiming for my horse. My horse was a lecherous little fucker. The horse, named Pao (as in POW YOU JUST GOT KICKED, PUSSY) had a proclivity for putting it’s head INSIDE of other horse’s asses.
And it wouldn’t be the last time that day that my horse got attacked for it’s sexual deviations.
Luckily, the second and third times this catastrophe reoccured, the little Colombian Cowboy man witnessed it and spent the rest of the journey berating and pulling the tail of the assailing horse. I’m not one for animal abuse, but I took pleasure in watching the cowboy punish the horse, and say mean things about it’s mom.
Thus, I came to understand horseback riding lesson number one: pull the reins back every time your horse gets his head within six inches of another horse’s butthole. Additionally, pull the reins to the side when your horse starts getting close to the barbed wire fence. In other words: don’t ever let your guard down, not even for a second.
I wasn’t sure where this journey was headed, but I wanted to be ya mismo (already). This was not an enjoyable experience. I can’t believe I had paid for this shit. Flashbacks had me feeling as foolish as the day actually I paid to see Troy.
Moments later, we are walking up a frighteningly steep path, which is covered with small rocks and giant boulders. From the back of the line, I had a clear shot of all the other horses attempting to traverse this rocky road. What I saw was not encouraging: the other horses kept slipping on these small little rocks, and I knew it was just a matter of time before one slipped and went rolling backwards, crushing it’s rider and taking out all the other horses like bowling pins.
Not wanting to be flattened by a horse, I chose to lean forward on my horse. I figured it would make it easier for him to climb this mountain.
NOPE. PAO COLLAPSED RIGHT ON HIS STUPID FUCKING FACE.
In that moment, only one image came to mind. Christopher Reeve.
No not the chiseled, bulging body doing it’s best to stay within the confines of sexy blue tights and enticing red cape, but the degenerate, crippled, blob of a body, a glorified, life-sized, battery-operated, farting potato head doll that requires daily pant changing .
Amazingly, the horse picked itself back up and continued up the mountain. I was still alive. But not for much longer! Probably!
We made it up the mountain and the cowboy told us we could disembark off the horses to come check out a waterfall. “Hell,” he could have said, “Come check out these hungry cannibals,” and I was still getting the fuck off that horse. Plus, I’m pretty sure it was time to change my diaper.
We saw this waterfall, which was fun for about three seconds, and then everyone took a vote to decide what to do next. “Continue forward” was an option. Obviously, that was not my preference, but I didn’t want to be a big gooping tampon in front of The Queen, so I just said, “Oh, I’m fine with whatever you guys want.” The three debated amongst themselves, and then thankfully “return to base” won.
I was kind of hoping everyone would forget what their horse looked like and someone would’ve taken mine by accident, but that didn’t happen. Me and Pao. Best buddies.
The Queen was having started having some issues with her horse, so the cowboy had to stay behind and help, while the other three of us went ahead.
It was in that moment, out of sight and jurisdiction of the only man these horses feared and revered, that another horse–the biggest and the blackest motherfucker– looked right at me, flashed the biggest set of teeth I have ever seen–and bit my horse.
Have you ever seen horse teeth? No?? Well, picture Angelina Jolie’s teeth and that gets you somewhere close. Of course, horse teeth are not nearly that big or ugly, but it’s the same idea. A horse looking at you and displaying its teeth is alarming enough. A horse biting at you with those protruding pearly whites is the stuff of nightmares. I would rather get bitten by a venomous snake than have one of those mouths wrapped around my arm–hell I’d rather even be bit by Magic Johnson. And yet the black horse went rogue and bit at every other horse once–and naturally, Pao’s dumb ass got bitten twice.
When we made it back to the entry point, the cowboy started helping each person off their horse. I wasn’t waiting. I stood on my horse’s back and somersaulted the fuck off that thing. Fuck these things. Turn them into glue. Wipe them off the face of the earth. Horses are menaces, and they were never meant to be ridden. Camels? Ostriches? Sure. But horses, no—they should be ridden one place only, and that’s into a giant grinder. I will never go horseback riding again. And I suggest you do the same.
