Last week I went to Baños with my class for 4 days. On the way there we stopped at an organic farm where the kids were enthralled by the fun that could be had pulling vegetables out of the ground. It was just like Donkey in Shrek, "Pick me! Pick me!" They also got to ride on horses and had a go at milking a cow. The cow looked quite startled at the idea of 17 kids all having a go! I also tried my hand at milking and have to say that it's quite similar to something else...lets just say that some of the boys were particularly good at it!
On Wednesday we biked the route of the waterfalls - I did this last year too and it's great fun, mostly downhill! I definitely prefer biking on the flat or downhill!
On Thursday we went for a walk around Baños. We walked up to the virgin from where you can see the whole town and the surrounding countryside. The walk itself involves lots of steps and I found it quite hard...although one of the kids was finding it even harder and by encouraging him I also found my way to the top. The virgin statue was pretty tacky and wouldn't have looked out of place in Blackpool. We rested for a while and then wound our way back down the steps and into the town. I have to admit my legs were shaking after all those steps!
In the afternoon we had lunch in a local park where the kids had a football match with some of the local kids which was cool. We then went back to the hotel to wait for our guide to go horseriding. The guide was only about 20 minutes late so I suppose it wasn't too bad.
Some of the kids are experienced riders and very quickly mounted and were ready to go. There were tears from a couple who were very nervous, but they overcame their fears and started the ride. I almost didn't get a horse because I was walking with one of these kids. Luckily there was one horse left - who turned out to be very slow. I was way behind the majority of the kids and Tom the teacher who came with me. There was just myself and one of the girls who was being led because she was very nervous. Eventually we arrived where the others had stopped and found that they had gone to have a look at something...we were about to start walking to find out what when the all returned! We remounted and started to head back. This time I was on a different horse who was much faster and I enjoyed some trotting and a bit of cantering. It was also good to be at the front rather than the back of the ride. As the horses got closer to home, they speeded up. My horse got too close to another who proceeded to kick out, giving me a nasty bruise on my left leg. However this was not as bad as what was to follow...
Arriving back in the field with 10 of the kids, I was about to dismount when I saw that one of the other horses was very close to me. It made me feel quite nervous and I was unsure about getting off the horse. Very quickly after this, said horse then mounted my horse, with me still sitting on it. I was absolutely terrified and didn't know what to do. Meanwhile the horse put it's hoof over my shoulder and also scraped down my right leg. My jeans were ripped to shreds - although I didn't realise this till I got off the horse. The whole experience was probably a maximum of a minute before the guides pulled the horse away, but it felt like much longer. I always knew that horses are very powerful beasts, but you don't realise quite how much till one has it's leg over your shoulder and is also pinning you to another horse. I had also only recently got over the fear I'd had since I was a kid, when I was chucked off a couple of times. After what seemed like forever I was able to get down and proceeded to shake like a leaf for at least 30 mins, I was also crying but had my sunglasses on so I don't think the kids were too aware of that. However they really didn't know how to react and I knew I had to put a brave face on things for them. I told them that I would be ok and make jokes about it soon, but that they needed to give me at east 15 mins before they laughed. The girls were all very sweet and came and sat with me and chatted till the shaking had almost subsided. The boys, when told that it was ok to, laughed their heads off.
Back at the hotel I hid away for a while and inspected the damage. I had two scrapes and bruises on my right leg and the bruise on my left leg from the kick. I was still pretty shocked and shaken for a while afterwards. Although very quickly I was concocting what to write on Facebook...I decided on the truth rather than one of my usual witty remarks...but knew that other people's amusement/comments would help me to deal with it.
That evening we had the 'last night disco'. It's surprising how many old 80s tunes the kids knew the words too. I was wondering if there would be any couples like last year, but towards the end, the boys watched the girls swanky dance moves from the sidelines.
Friday came and we headed to breakfast, to find that about 4 bus loads of men had turned up for breakfast. They proceeded to call out to me whilst I was getting breakfast and I have to say I was very glad to be leaving that morning.
The bus ride back to school was uneventful and I gladly waved goodbye to the kids and came home to collapse for a couple of hours before heading out to have some fun with friends in Quito.
