Meaningful travel leaves marks. Some emerge immediately and others linger, buried until revealed.
I’ve been listening to talks, attending workshops, and writing for five days in a San Miguel de Allende conference hotel. My brain is addled with no more room to absorb anything else. And my imagination has gone dark, out of words to put on paper. While I’m charmed by the high ceilinged, airy lobby and colorfully tiled outdoor spaces, I’m anxious to escape to the Mexican countryside. Wherever I am, after several days in a city, I long to break free, to smell the fresh air, shake out the stiffness in my muscles, and go for a lung-expanding hike. On this particular morning, however, over a breakfast of huevos rancheros, a fellow conference attendee, Naomi, recommends I head for the hills with a posse of cowboys. It takes all of five seconds for me to decide: yes, absolutely, a vigorous horseback ride through Coyote Canyon is exactly what I need.
What is it about women and horses? The love story begins when a little girl in pigtails reads Black Beauty, My Friend Flicka, or Misty of Chincoteague. She learns to ride a horse. She wants a horse for Christmas. The majestic creatures are like unicorns that feed her fancies, powerful symbols of dreams, desires and aspirations. Is it their beauty and elegance that inspires her to romanticize these gentle giants? Or is it because of where they can take her, off to the horizon, into the sunset?
We take a half hour’s bumpy drive across rutted roads outside of San Miguel to landscape that would be the perfect backdrop for a classic Mexican Western. I meet my sorrel steed in a dusty corral at the base of the canyon, Lucifero is a Mexican mustang, small and lithe — just fourteen hands high — the perfect mount for my sixty-three inches. I wonder about his name, Lucifer, in English. Will he indeed be a devilish ride? I dismiss the possibility and opt for the Latin meaning of his name: morning light. I’m an adolescent stroking his broad forehead with its elongated white star, gazing into big, dark eyes behind a shaggy forelock. He has a beautiful face. I put my left foot in the stirrup, swing my right leg up and over, and settle into the broad saddle. I grip the Charro horn, bigger and flatter that its Western counterpart, as the vaquero adjusts my stirrup length.
Our group of six is well tended by four cowboys in straw hats, each swinging a red lasso. Our amigos are connected to the land in ways only possible in the wilderness. We’re soon on the trail splashing back and forth across the river at the base of the canyon. Unlike other outings where the horses remain in an obedient nose to tail caravan, this excursion is billed as an adventure. Those of us able to ride leave the others behind to gently lope and then gallop ahead. I sense the wild, muscled power of Lucifero beneath me as my eyes water, my hair flies, and I’m one with my horse. Do we have to stop? I think, as we slow to a trot to let the others catch up. Yes, we must because it’s time to scale the canyon wall up steep, rocky switchbacks. After just an hour on the trail, Lucifero and I trust each other. We’ve bonded. We crest the canyon summit at last and can now see in the distance the spires of San Miguel’s Parroquia to the northeast and the rolling crests of extinct volcanoes to the south. The breeze has picked up, cooling the plateau.
If hiking is my favorite moving meditation, then surely riding a horse is my preferred seated version. The rhythmic rocking of the saddle and the steady, soothing movement of the horse’s hindquarters become an effortless sway. I’m mesmerized on the back of this graceful animal, absorbed in the moment. Dust and desert. Cactus and mesquite. Sun and sky.
***
I sit in the hotel lobby with a glass of wine, relaxing before retiring. Someone taps me on the shoulder and I wince.
“So sorry,” apologizes Naomi as she sits down across from me. “Looks like you got a nasty sunburn today.”
“I did,” I reply. “But I had a wonderful day and can’t thank you enough for your excursion tip.”
As I cross my legs and shift on the sofa, an audible “ouch” escapes my lips. I look down to see a long, narrow bruise on my inner calf where the saddle fender pinched. Ah, I think, here they are, the immediate marks of my adventure.
I finish my nightcap and hustle back to my room, anxious to return to my writing. Refreshed and renewed, the words bubble forth. About mustangs, and canyons; about yearning and unicorns.
Coyote Canyon Adventures: http://www.coyotecanyonadventures.com