With three days off, the ladies were acting like feisty-fillies. Getting scared at anything and everything in their path. Every 4 kilometers in Uruguay, there is a stream that crosses underneath the highway. Since I ride on the grassy patch next to the road, sometimes I cross the stream, and if it’s too muddy or deep, will go on top of the highway.

The first stream we came up to that morning, I rode right next to the fence line. When Cautiva stepped into the water, she sunk up to her chest in mud.

“Oh no!,” is all I managed to get out before she shot back.

She began backing up and because the stream continued to her left and the fence was right next to her right, she became flustered. She backed up until she hit Andariega who was carrying the pack, freaked out and went to spin to her right – not a great choice. Both her front hooves went into the fence line and when she felt the wire on her legs she went crazy. She fought to get her legs out while I struggled to stay on. She freaked out so much, she fell on her left side and almost squished my leg. Luckily I took my foot out of the stirrup before she hit the grass and ejected myself from the saddle.

Standing next to her, I tried to calm her down but she shot straight back up. Thankfully in the process, her legs came loose.

I shook off the accident, thanked the heavens we were okay and climbed back onto the saddle. Four kilometers later, at the next stream we reached, I thought to myself, “I’m not going to take any chances, lets go up on the highway.”

As we began to ride up the small hill towards the road, I saw a large truck speeding up. I tried to hold the mares to allow it to pass before we got on the shoulder but the rattling truck spooked Andariega who took off running. On instinct, Cautiva did the same. I fought to stop Andariega by yanking on her lead rope with my right hand and Cautiva by pulling back on the reins with my left. All the while, a large brown container flew-by, inches from my galloping ponies, like a train robbery scene out of a John Wayne movie.

The sinister wind from the truck’s back wheels made my soul scream with horror.

Just as the girls began to slow down, the right box of the pack saddle hit Cautiva’s right shoulder and flew off the saddle. I watched the bright-orange box do a full flip in mid air, in slow-motion, as the mares both hit 5th gear.

With the thud of the clunky box hitting the shoulder’s rough asphalt, they turned their heads left and ran onto the highway. We missed the back of the truck by a car’s length, but when I shot my head back towards incoming traffic, I discovered a white van was headed straight for us.

I pushed my left spur into Cautiva’s ribs and neck-reined her hard to the right. She moved her body sideways swiftly and in a split second my right leg was squished between both mares as we pushed Andariega off the road.

“Oh no!” I yelled out stepping down from the saddle with rubbery legs.

I led the mares towards the orange box, some 10 meters back, as they freakishly twitched and snorted, still convinced something was out to kill them.