Five Countries in Four Days for Journey Europe Ladies

News Desk | March 11, 2013

On February fifth Olivia and I left the ranch and boarded a flight headed for Italy. Today, March fifth I’m sitting in an apartment above a barn in Fronreute Germany. It’s hard to explain and harder to believe how we’ve managed to get from Santa Fe to Fronreute in four weeks. We’ve experienced drama, trauma and even a touch of fame as we’ve moseyed our way to five separate countries. To date we’ve ridden our horses in Italy, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria and Germany. We have logged over 250 Km in the saddle and 150 Km on our truck ride over the San Bernardino pass.
On the drama front our time in Italy was cut short due to weather in France and the availability of a truck to get us across the Alps. After a few days of chaos we managed to arrange a truck to get us into Switzerland, which involved an intimidating amount of paperwork. After a nerve racking two hour delay at the border where our paperwork was checked and triple checked we were allowed to cross into Switzerland without anyone ever actually looking in the truck to see if the paperwork matched the actual cargo and no one looked at our passports. Governmental bureaucracy seems to be universally tedious and more concerned about the process than the reality of their assigned task. It would appear that with a valid horse passport and a lorry we could have transported camels to Switzerland as long as we promised not to stay more than seven days. Changing our route and transporting to Switzerland definitely caused some drama but really things have gone very smoothly considering we are traveling by horse in the winter across Switzerland and Austria.
As for the trauma, Olivia suffered our first injury on the trail and I suffered through a trauma that happened just before we left. While learning to use our GoPro camera a few days before we began our journey my horse and I took a nasty fall at a full gallop. I was treated at our local emergency room for a minor concussion and some bruised ribs but I refused to remove my boots so my ankle could be checked. I honestly didn’t think I had injured my ankle beyond a sprain, but I was honestly wrong. After a long flight and several long walks it became apparent I had done some significant damage to my ankle. Thanks to the magic hands of Olivia and significant amounts of ibuprofen I managed to keep the limping and swelling to a minimum until we reached Switzerland and trudged through the partially frozen mud in the horse corral. Since most of the swelling had subsided it was obvious that I had damaged the bone in my ankle. Over the past week I have ridden in insulated snow boots that I can lace very tightly which has provided a certain amount of comfort and I’m sure in another week or so I’ll be completely healed.
Olivia’s injury was much more sensational and provided a peek into how dangerous life can be when dealing with horses. While walking past a stall with her hands full of saddle blankets a horse attacked over the fence and bit Olivia on the cheek. She was very lucky that she was far enough away the horse couldn’t actually bite and rip her flesh he only managed to smash into her face with his teeth and seriously bruise her cheek. She was as stunned as she was hurt and so confused that a horse would behave in this manner without warning or provocation. Unfortunately many of the “sport” horses are kept in very confined spaces, never being allowed contact with other horses and only given human contact when it is time to eat or work. These horses do not follow the same social rules as horses who live in a herd or who are given human contact when it does not involve food or work.
Finally the fame! Anyone reading this who actually knows me, knows I have no interest in being famous. I do my best to hide anytime someone has a camera near so doing interviews and posing for pictures has been a very difficult transition for me. We did our first interview in Italy and it was fairly low key but once we arrived in Switzerland things became a little more crazy. There have been reporters from newspapers, radios, TV, online newspapers and magazines. We have had our story told in multiple languages all across Europe. It is very odd to meet people along the road in a foreign country who’s only english consists of “American Cowgirls!” said with a big smile. Our goal was to raise awareness and we have certainly managed to do that. We are headed to Equitana which is one of the biggest horse shows in Europe in two weeks and we are certain to generate even more publicity for the horses and their story.
One of the things I’ve missed on our trip is access to good music. We can’t use earphones while we’re riding if we want to continue to live and by the time we get settled for the night we seldom have time or access to a stereo to even play the iPod. So I tend to sing to myself as we ride, sometimes in my head and sometimes out loud. The horses are very kind with their critiques of my musical ability. I don’t really know all the words to most of the songs but it seems the ones that stick in my head are the songs about following your heart. It may have seemed like a crazy idea, to ride horses across Europe a month ago but today it seems like it was exactly what I needed to do. In the words of one of my heroes, Guy Clark, some days you just need to: “Screw your courage up so tight that the whole thing comes unwound… He did not know he could not fly, so he did”… I did not know why I needed to ride across Europe, so I did.