Patagonia: Horseback Riding

There are no words or pictures that can truly illustrate how phenomenal this day of horseback riding was. Alas, I will do my best.....

Luciano picked us up at our hostel at 9am. 

There was a lot of wildlife on the way to the estancia. If you look closely, there were a ton of condor.

As well as sheep running in a herd. 

And wild cows in the road.

We passed by many idyllic estancias.

The estancia we went to is one of two inside the Parque Nacional de Glaciares.

Luciano making our mate

I don't like mate. 

Horses are naturally smaller in Patagonia. This was problematic for Daniel, who is 6'4". All of the horses looked like ponies next to him! 

One of my favorite pictures of the whole trip. 

On the horses! Check out Mario's gaucho outfit! 

Funny story about Julie's horse. When we were approximately a mile away from the estancia, Julie's horse turned around and started walking back. All of us were shouting at her to pull on the reins, etc, etc, but nothing would coax the horse back to the group! Turns out it was the horse's first day out on a ride, so he wasn't trained as well as the others. Julie and Daniel ended up switching horses, so poor Daniel had to sit on an even smaller horse with an even smaller saddle!

Disney Princess Status

You can see a glacier in the gap between the mountains. 

We stopped at a little fire area for asado. Luciano made us delicious meat and sauteed onions and peppers. We also had two bottles of wine (the second may have been a mistake). It was so much fun having a private horseback ride and private asado. 

By the fire. It was built in a swamp (probably not on purpose).

Bonding with Impostor.

Whoever says ponchos are only Mexican is wrong.

This was probably the best travel experience of my life. I hope to return to the Cabalgates del Glaciares again someday and find it to be exactly the same as it is today.

I will never forget Impostor!