So now the story goes on a little tour, with a variety of people and places along the way… we’ll take it slowly.

First, Ana, the daughter at the last farm, had introduced me to another horsewoman in the area that she grew up with, Joana. We liked each other and Joana immediately invited me to come help out at her riding stable. The only challenge was she had no facilities for food or accommodation. Food I could take care of easily, but accommodation was a bit harder. I asked around, and my friends came up with many clever ideas… and none panned out. What to do?
With that still up in the air, off I went to join Benoit for a bit of adventure…

Benoit and I had planned a trip to France, so off we went. On the way back we visited family friends in southern France, in the Dordogne, a magical area, especially beautiful in summer.

Benoit grew up going on vacations with this family, and the son, Eric, is still one of his best and oldest friends.

I first met Eric, his (now) ex-wife and kids at our wedding, so it was a wonderful coincidence that I met his parents 9 years later on our anniversary. His mother, Helene, on the left is a marvelous host, and she will come back into the story many months later, around my birthday. The kids have grown a lot since then… the wee one in the middle, Julia, was a tiny baby. Romane, on the right, was shorter than I. Now she’s a strong athlete, an accomplished cheerleader, who gets tossed up on high pyramids of strong bodied souls. Beautiful. In many ways. She came to stay with us back when we were still living in France, and Benoit has helped mentor her athletic career. Love the lucite heels. :)

Nine is a very lucky number in Thailand, so it was fitting for me that we had such a brilliant time marking our 9th year together.

And Romane, Eric and Benoit all jumped off an impossibly high cliff into the river (9 meters!). Crazy, happy people.

At some point in the middle of all of this, I get an invitation to come to a lovely homestead and help out with three horses. After saying yes, I realized that it was 20k from Joana’s riding stable! We discussed the possibilities, and we all agreed that I would take the first 10 days of my stay there, working half the normal hours in return for housing, and spend the rest of the day at Joana’s. Accommodation solved!

Eventually, I arrived back in Portugal, and went to help out at Joana’s stable…
Joana has 6 horses, some of which were rescued from dire situations, and all are trained with her loving guidance to be mentally and physically capable of letting anyone ride them. Of course, some are more for beginners and a few are for more advanced riders, and all are kind and well adjusted and willing to take anyone along the trails with grace and alacrity. This speaks to Joana’s skill and kindness as a horse trainer. Some stables force horses to take riders, tying their heads low so they don’t have a lot of maneuverability, using severe bridles or painful bits, denying food, etc.. Joana does not. She builds relationships of trust, confidence, respect and love.

These disrespectful relationships happen all over the world in my experience, mostly because first, humans don’t see other beings as equals, and second, because it’s just faster to force versus build respectful relationships. It reminds me a lot of the parent-child relationship that I also see all over the world, too. If we do it to our kids, why wouldn’t we do it to others? Our own training – the fact that most of us were treated like this by our own parents – makes it even easier to continue without examination.

The difference for me is that most humans grow out of this situation, whereas domesticated animals can spend their whole lives like this. It’s not pretty. And such a relief to be with people who take the time to create respectful relationships with the animals around them… human and otherwise. This is a huge part of why I continually search for natural horsemanship hosts, because it tends to attract people who have examined this relationship, and found it wanting… and gone through the hard work to change it.
Such a blessing!

There were two other women who were helping out while I was there. We helped with feeding, grooming, and tacking up (saddling and bridling) as well as leading horses for riders who were total beginners (walking along, controlling the horse from the ground). In return we all went for trail rides every few days.

We had great fun galloping around. We did one trail in half the time because we galloped for long stretches of it. The horses love running together. Sometimes they don’t want to stop… I just stayed in the saddle and enjoyed the ride!

One of the other women there, Rita, and her husband, Silverio, and I started chatting the first day. We got on instantly and stood talking for almost an hour before deciding we should all go out for lunch. As luck would have it, they were staying half way between me and Joana (remember the 20km distance between the two?), so I drove to their’s every day and they drove the rest of the way. Thus budded a friendship that is in full bloom to this day. They live in Lisbon, so we often go for dinner when we’re in town.

They’re both black belts in karate! Rita is a self-employed karate teacher (of 30 years!) and was finishing a year long yoga teacher training. And of course, she loves horses. I love her. She’s incredibly kind and can punch through your skull and kick your ass with her little toe. What’s not to love?
I may be exaggerating a bit with the skull thing… but imagine your skull is a block of wood…

Actually, this kind karate combo is true for both of them, benevolent black belts both.
Silverio works for Renault and is into self-discovery and examining the machinations of power brokers. He volunteers to test out car automation so that he can understand the bigger picture. He has a wicked knowledge of all things auto. I just learned recently that he also tests out zoom-y fast cars so that Rita can race around in them… :)
They’re both heart based, so Benoit gets along with them, too.

And then there’s Kiko. Mr. Grumpy Lion. He looks like a super sweet, cute and cuddly dog… but he dislikes people. He’d rather bite you than lick you. I adore the dichotomy. I think the costume department gave the grumpy old man the super-cuddly-wuddly outfit as a cosmic joke. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. It might bite you. Haha.
He puts up with me.

After 10 days of fun galavanting around, I said goodbye to all of my new friends, two and four-legged, and settled into “full time” work-exchange at the next place, 20km away in Cercal. More about that in the next installment.

My shoulder, by the way, was feeling much better by now. Still not great range of motion, but the pain was mostly all gone. Shew!

Off we go! See you in Cercal!