Date: November 2, 2005
Location: La Labranza II, Condega, Nicaragua
After the stressful experience of Hurricane Beta in Managua, Carrie and I set off for the small and tranquil town of La LaBranza II in the municipality of Condega. We planned to spend two days there relaxing and experiencing the local Dia del Muerta (Day of the Dead) celebration with Suzie, who we were staying with.
Children stand by a decorated gravesite in Condega during the Day of the Dead celebration |
After waking up early, Carrie, Suzie and I began what the locals advertised as a “short and easy walk” to the Condega cemetery. What “short and easy” actually meant was a one and a half hour hike up and down mountains, falling into a river, traipsing through ankle-deep mud and almost losing our shoes.
We spent a few hours at the cemetery (check out the Dia del Muerto section for more detail) before Suzie learned that a neighbor had ridden her horse to the celebration and she offered to let me ride it back since I had, shall we say, complained a bit more than the other two about the walk there. Now, at this point I had ridden a horse twice in my life, and both times were with a guide in a controlled and English speaking environment. Suzie gives me brief instructions on how to ride it – kick it to make it go, pull the reigns left to make it go left, right to make it go right, pull back to make it stop – and the reassurance that the horse knows its way home.
The beginning of the walk was fine, as Carrie and Suzie were walking down the steep, rocky, muddy hill next to me. However, at a certain point they told me that it was easier for them to go down a shortcut and meet me at the bottom. Before I can clarify anything, they are off. Needless to say, when my horse reaches the bottom Carrie and Suzie are nowhere to be found so I let my horse continue following the horses in front of me, hoping that “the bottom” they spoke of was actually a little further up.
Our group of horses and riders continued until we crossed a bridge, now officially far away from any possibly bottom, so I stopped for a few minutes then turned around to retrace my steps. My horse and I walked back the way we came, again passing the turnoff to the hill with no sign of Carrie and Suzie. Not wanting to get too far from the general area they might be in, I try to get my horse to turn around again…and this is where the real adventure begins.
Suzie helps me get onto her horse...this was the last time I would see her for hours |
My horse decides that it does not want to listen to the person on its back who has been kicking it and pulling its reigns with no real idea what he is doing. Instead, the horse wants to cross the river up ahead and keep walking…farther and farther away from civilization and any road or location that I recognize. I continue to pull and kick and yell at the horse, but he has a mind of his own. So before I know it, I am on a path in the backwoods of Nicaragua with a horse that doesn’t like me…my still-crummy Spanish…the equivalent of 20 cents…and Chap Stick.
Shortly after this I come to a terrible realization; the road I’m on has a power line running alongside it. La LaBranza II has no electricity. Not to mention, I have no idea what the town’s name actually is. About 30 minutes, multiple rivers and no sign of any houses or people later, I finally pass a house that the horse does not want to stop at. I begin to have my first of two breakdowns, screaming at the horse and just asking it “why don’t you want to listen to anything I say?”
Of course, it’s the random Gringo having a nervous breakdown in front of his house that brings the owner outside to help. Not remembering the town’s name, I start asking the guy if he knows of a community with the number two in it.
He replies, “You mean La LaBranza II? Are you looking for Suzie’s house?”
“Yes!” I exclaim, beyond excited that he can point me in the right direction and not the least bit shocked that he instantly knew who I was looking for and where to find the one Gringa around.
“She’s just up that road. You cross three rivers and go up a hill. It’s around two kilometers.”
With that, I was off in the direction he had shown me. However, this was by no means the end of my journey. After crossing the rivers and starting up the hill, the horse makes a left into the yard of a house that is definitely NOT Suzie’s. An old woman comes out to see why there is a Gringo in her yard and I learn that the horse I am on sleeps and eats there sometimes.
Susie's horse back at her home after the events of The Horseback Ride From Hell |
So essentially, it thinks it is home. I ask for new directions and, after spending about 10 minutes trying to understand her fast and slurred Spanish, I try to get the horse to get going.
Needless to say, the horse continues to spite me, going in the exact opposite direction and trying to walk over a barbed wire fence. Then, it stops in the middle of a river and refuses to go anywhere, regardless of my kicking, pulling of reigns, screaming and second full breakdown of the afternoon. Furthermore, as if to say, “I’ve had just about enough of you,” the horse even tries to buck me off twice before walking back up to the old woman’s house and calling it quits.
Finally, I dismount the horse and ask the woman that, since she knows the horse and it knows her house, if I can just leave it there and walk back to Suzie’s house. I think that she agrees, but then as I start to walk away she hands me the reigns and tells me to bring it with me. So I spend the final 15 minutes of the two-plus hour walk dragging this horse behind me to Suzie’s house. I hope the horse had a good laugh that day, because I sure didn’t.
Of course, when I got back to Suzie’s house, she and Carrie were nowhere to be found. So after tying up the horse in Suzie’s yard I proceeded on foot to walk around looking for them until I came across a group of me who told me that my companions were on their way back. Seems that once they couldn’t find me in the beginning they retraced the path I should have taken, asking everyone along the way if they had seen a Gringo on a horse. Naturally no one had, as I took the most backwards route ever. Needless to say, I wasn’t the only one who had a stressful afternoon that Dia del Muerta.
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