An Adventure to make you laugh...and to warn you do NOT do this!!!

So we love to travel. We go to Sandals Resorts every year. Its our very favorite place. So in April of 2007 we went to Sandals Grande Ocho Rios. HUGE HUGE resort. Beautiful water of course. But this is not a post about the resort...

This is a post about the tours you can take on these vacations. So I'm looking at all the excursions and tours and I see one that is for horseback riding through the countryside, then you get to ride the horses in the ocean too. So cool right?? I'll let you think it's cool now, just wait. So I make sure to ask a million questions, most all regarding to how deep in the ocean you go, since I'm terrified of deep water (thanks for that mom, hahaha) They told me it only goes up to like the horses legs, like the lower part of their body. So I'm thinking oh okay, I can handle this. Then I ask well do they swim through the water, and they told me, no they trot, its very relaxing and beautiful. I know what you're thinking, once in a lifetime thing to do right? Ride a horse through the beautiful Caribbean. Again, I'm going to let you keep thinking this. So we book the tour.

We get there, and they take us out to the horses. I'm like wait, where are the saddles? All they have are these little tiny things on top... (Art says they were english saddles, whatever that means) So I get on the horse. Yeah this is going to really really hurt after 3 hours of riding this thing practically bare back. So away we go with the 8 other people in our group. Art and I stayed in back and chatted with the 2nd tour guide, he was awesome. And told us alot about Jamaica. Alot of sad stories there. Anywho...bla bla bla, we ride through the hillside....Saw a bunch of huge scary spiders, bla bla bla.

So then we get to the beach. (Its not a resort beach, its a normal one, so its kinda dirty) but the water was still gorgeous. We get off the horses and they tell us to change into our swim suites. I do, thinking why did I bring this if we're hardly going to get wet. So we get back up, and get ready to go into the ocean. Our horses go out into the water. Ahhh sooo pretty. Then before we "start" our water adventure, the main guide says, oh and anyone who's horse takes a crap in the water owes us $2. We all laugh, thinking he's so funny and making a joke. Until we notice one of the horses had pooped in water, and then it was gross. But oh well we're thinking. Guess he had to go. Well apparently horses must get an urge while they are in the water. So we start "trotting" along, and every single one of the horses start pooping in the water!!! Did I mention I was in the back????!!!!???? So there is all this poop just floating around, but guess what happens when horses trot, it starts making the waves bigger, and then the poop starts flying around. And yes I'm totally serious! So by this time, I've got 8 horses poop in front and all around me. And we all know horses don't poop just a little amount. So we start going faster, the horse poop is like discinigrating (sp?) and getting chopped up because its flying through the water. Here we are riding our horses , who are RUNNING ... not trotting, and this poop infested water is coming up with the waves and getting all over you. Art and I have our mouthes closed thinking, oh dear lord please do not let me eat any of this crap. Literally!!! And you're not in to your ankles , its like up to your waist. So from waist down, you're flying through horse poop water. The water didn't have that gorgeous blue color anymore. More brown and smelly.

So in addition to worrying about getting poop all over you, you are hauling through the water on your horse on this bare to none thing they call an english saddle. You can barely hold on, and you're about to fall off. I'm pratically in tears by this point. Mostly because I kept thinking, oh my gosh, I'm going to fall off, get my foot stuck in this thing, and drown underneath a horse who is going to trample me to death in POOP water!!! Drowning is bad enough, but in poop water!! So we stop for a second and I tell them I want to go back in, the main guy is totally making fun of me, and I tell him I don't want to drown in poop water. He thinks this is pretty funny...Its not. Luckily the other tour guide who we'd become friends with offered to go really slow with me while everyone else ran through...So he did. I made it back without drowning in the poop water!! HOORAY!!!

The moral of this story, is when you go somewhere tropical and they try to convince you that you should take this wonderful "romantic" horseback ride through the ocean, you should SAY NO!!! Unless you like riding through poop water and getting covered in it. And if you do, then

knock yourself out.