In the next day I will come to a very fundamental finding of our ride.
One of the horses, Tian, refuses to cross any river or bridge. I can’t blame Tian, as in his youth some people had him fall dramatically off a wooden bridge into a river and injure himself so badly that he had almost a year of physio and recovery. But… there’s a beautiful, wild river ahead.
The first attempts to cross the river bridge are like an American rodeo. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to film or take pictures. Horse on hinds, horse on forehands, horse on hinds, pirouette…horse on hinds…and so on 🙂 The first bridge is gravel, spacious, and only about half a meter above the river. After a few minutes of struggle, it is climbed. The horse snorts and everyone around him snorts too. However, the problem does not end there. According to the Soviet topographic map, there are many, many rivers ahead on the way :))))
In an hour we enter the beautiful red canyon. The deep orange, ferruginous soil alternates with tufts of deep green grass. My favourite colours – green and orange, nicely together in the natural scenery… here the road disappears, thanks to the heavy rain of the last few days, in a washed out bed of flowing water. What follows are several hours of desperate improvisation to find and sometimes create a path on the slope above the river. Stones fall down into the abyss and I stumble with my horses on the steep slope above the river. Since I’m dizzy, I’m really bad at handling terrain like this – now I just firmly hope it’s over soon and I definitely never have to walk a similar route back. Occasionally the trail ends in the river and there are several desperate wading, backtracking and an equally desperate run straight through the river.
Finally, we are out of the canyon. Only – Tian refuses to go forward. The road runs on the right slope high above the thundering river and Tian decides just at the narrow path that he can’t go any further. And the three horses are quite difficult to handle on the slope above the river… After several hours of struggle, we pull the bucking and defiant Tian up the slope to the raging river.
He doesn’t even have to talk, there is absolutely no doubt that this is THE place where he once fell off a bridge and got injured. A rickety bridge made of several wooden logs, composed of two parts (probably for Lada Niva’s wheels…). A monstrous hole in the middle, visually covered with a few dry twigs. Below it, a raging river.
I undertake a suicide mission and go on foot to demonstrate to the horses that “this bridge is totally cool”. Fidel takes this as a clear “hurrah, let’s go ahead” and suddenly there are six feet on the narrow logs. So now there is no room for dizziness or any long thinking – just go. With shaky legs, I calm down on the other bank and try to look sovereign on the horse… We won’t make it back through the canyon by nightfall today. We can’t spend the night in the canyon, there’s no grazing for the horses. Besides, I promised myself I’d never go down that canyon again! Let’s try to motivate Tian to follow the horse. No luck. In front of the horse. No luck either.
I don’t know… I ran out of inventions. So I’ll just go with Chai, he’s a good walker. Then we’ll see. With my legs wide apart (like a cross between a pussycat and a sailor), I’ll take Chai over the bridge. Well, now all that’s left is that red-haired Tian.
What happened to the fox, the goat and the wolf? I ferry the goat, load the wolf, take the goat back… take Chai back to ferry Tian? No way. I don’t know what the horse has been through here, but I know from his behavior that I won’t get him across that bridge today… there’s nothing to be done, there are no good solutions here. Every solution is a bit of a cop-out. The best thing to do is just try to ford that river – and if it’s too deep or steep at the beginning of the channel, you’d better turn back and try to find another place to ford. Or wait until morning, it should be less water. With unsteady legs I carry all my gear bags across the bridge and pray to the universe.
(This is exactly how it was: The hero on the Tian fearlessly approaches the raging river. The horse rears up furiously, the whites of his eyes almost completely covered by fear. With the expression of a madman, the fearless rider plunges headlong into the fierce current. The horse resists, the current is too strong.
But no current is nearly strong enough for our hero! He holds his horse firmly against the water with his arms, strong as a bear. Like the God Atlas, holding the heavens, he holds the stream of water away from his horse with an almost supernatural force. The horse, supported by the fearlessness of its rider, sets out to meet the water. Thanks to his rider, he conquers the river and looks forward to continuing his journey.)
Fortunately, the river was not that deep, so with a certain amount of encouragement, Tian made it through. Whew, we have it. Just the other ten or so rivers along the way…
