Today we select and choose our horses. Earlier Philip, the head instructor, gave us a brief description of our horses which we used to figure out who we would ride. Around 8am we got on our horses and began riding, half way through the lesson Janna switched all of us to other horses which fit each of us better than the horses we started on. We finished riding each getting about 15 minutes on our new horses, before we had to take them back and cool them down.
Later in the afternoon after lunch we went to the local super Wal-Mart. Three stories high, this giant store contained everything from shoes, to shampoo, to high end stylish clothes to even selling airline tickets. The Wal-Mart contains everything you could possibly need and more. A whole section exists where you can eat exotic foods such as chicken legs to weird things that cannot be named. I buy several nice polo’s for 50-80 Chinese currency. This is equivalent to $10 US dollars, a great buy. Gus buys a bunch of different types of food to try.
We then head to dinner and eat buffet style that night with 5-6 native Chinese dishes.
Today we ride our horses at 8am again; like yesterday, being the first riders our horses are already tacked up for us by the grooms. We ride and begin to really click with our mounts learning all their quirks. We run through our dressage tests at the end of our ride. After our 50 minutes of riding, again like yesterday we cool down our horses. The weather is still horrible, 95 degrees and about 2-3x the humidity as back home in Maryland.
This is the first day we have our lunches packed and we do not eat in the restaurant. We get on the bus and get driven for about an hour to a Chinese folk town which is a tourist attraction. The small town is made up of a man made river with boats, lots of performances of ancient traditions and many historical buildings replicated to a small scale. There is a horse show where Chinese foot soldiers and riders stage a battle with swords. After wards our team pays 20 R&B or 3 American dollars to ride a Mongolian horse around an arena. We get lots of pictures. The day is continually rainy. Just sitting under shelter is not enough to stop the sweat from rolling off you.
On the drive back to Camelot, the resort we are staying at, we take a 15minute break at wal-mart again in case anyone needs anymore necessary goods.
Dinner is mashed potatoes and chicken at the restaurant.
Derek Alvey
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