The next morning, it was time to meet our mounts.
The Icelandic horse — technically a
pony since under 14 hands — is a 1,000-year-old breed kept pure by rules nearly
as old that prohibit all imports of horses into Iceland. Most have five gaits;
in addition to the regular three they have a running walk called a tolt, very
comfortable for long distances, and a fast pace that is used only for racing
(and in cases of bad riders like us, to cheat when they don’t want to tolt, the
hardest gait for the horse).
Louise and I never figured out the names of
any of our horses, they all sounded like nothing but consonants (a tad like the
many nice people we met).
There were about 18 of us, of varying riding ability,
plus five staff on our first jaunt, and we lit out for the hills without
looking back. We went out for about three hours through the hills and
valleys near Fossnes Farm, home of both our horses and us. The weather:
some sun and a bit of snow and hail. I am not making this up. Fortunately we
had been given pretty good instructions about what to bring (with one
exception, more on that later) and were fully layered up. Check the video.
It’s very unusual for the temperature
in Iceland to exceed 55 degrees at any time. A dip in the (small) Jacuzzi and a
hot dinner of smoked lamb cooked at the guesthouse warmed us up.
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