Blatts in Peru: Hoseback Riding Near Cusco

ßy Marina

It was our second day in Peru and Dad decided that we would take a walking tour of Cusco with our guide book. First we checked out a wonderful viewpoint of Cusco. Then we took a small hike  to Cristo Blanco  (a big statue of white Jesus) soon, after a couple of minutes, the altitude finally caught up to us and we had to take a taxi up.

While we were riding in the cab, the driver asked us if we wanted to take a one hour horseback ride to two temple ruins, Temple de la Luna, and Temple del Sol.  We thought it would be a really cool experience, so we said yes!

They took us to their little farm, and we mounted our horses.  Mom got the calm but snnapy one, named "Principe" .   Dad got the macho leader of the horses "Bandito" . I got the fast and really nice horse named Pacha. Benji's horse, Menado was the prettiest of them all. We mounted our horses,  were taught how to steer, stop and move the horsers.  It was the first time I was able to ride a horse by myself and I loved holdng the reins of Pacha and showing her where to go.  The path started  as a thin dirt road but soon it opened up to  a  big plain of grass and flowers. Surrounding us were mountains and valleys and we felt like we were in a movie.

We rode for thirty minutes until we had a rest stop at temple de la luna . We explored the tunells and ruins for 20 min. then we got back on our horses ad rode for twenty more minutes before we stopped to explore the temple de la luna. Then, the horses brought us to San Cristo and we were told that we had to get off.   Our one our ride had turned into much more and I wished it could have been for forever.  I watched Pacha run off to the other horses while dad asked some ladies for instructions back to our hotel they said for us to follow them  for a short cut back down a long , steep hill wiith hundreds of stairs. When we got to our hotel we went inside and and read in bed, exhausted from such a long  and exciting day.