Mexico – San Cristobal – Cowboy Sam

We will be sad to leave San Cristobal. It has been the perfect place to pitch ourselves for a few months. The children have lost sight of back home and Jemima even asked if we could come and live here!

It would be a very liveable place and we have met some really lovely people in a very short period of time, establishing routines for ourselves. The town is so accessible and walkable, the climate perfect. The Spanish lessons have been a real success, particularly for Jemima and Mark, who have improved in leaps and bounds. Whether we will be able to maintain it back in the UK I don’t know, but it has been good for all our brains and good to have the discipline back in our lives, of having to getting up early and do homework etc… we shall have to have a Spanish film night every fortnight, or something like that, to keep it going!

We have come across a great ranch out of San Cristobal – sadly we only just discovered it in the last two weeks – where Sam, an American, who is a real cowboy, has made his home here. Fed up of an America who could vote in a Hollywood actor as their President, he vowed never to return and came to Mexico to work with horses.  He comes from Cherokee Indian stock and lived on a reserve in the US. His confidence with horses is incredible. We rather naively turned up at the ranch to go for a ride, which we had booked into. Sam was adamant that we had to have a lesson first – “I don’t want you to go out there in those mountains, without being sure that you can ride first. These are Big Animals” – what wise words, particularly as he had no hats! His 12  beautiful horses are well kept, well loved, well fed. I would even go as far as to say affectionate. Whenever Sam walked passed his stallion he seemed to want to be patted and stroked.

He lives here with Stephanie, his French wife and their two gorgeous home-schooled daughters, who made instant friends with our kids. There are several foreign volunteers working here on the farm – they are here to work with horses. A French couple, two Dutch girls and a Finish girl. Laura and Heidi were the most horse-wise and made for very good teachers.

When Sam first arrived here and took over the management of the land, his ranch was surrounded one day by all the local village men who came armed with machetes to drive him off the land.  The local water supply happened to have its source on his land and they wanted to be absolutely sure that their water supply wasn’t  going to be tainted in any way. He bravely told them to all come back at Christmas to have a proper discussion and offering them coffee and doughnuts, managed to persuade them that he was on their side. He is now their local vet and acts as a consultant on many farm and land issues, many of the children are now their girls’ friends.

Sam eventually put us all on the horses bare-back, but not before he and Mark had put the world to right. There is no sense of time here on the ranch. We rode around a ring, taking it in turns, watching each other while we were having lessons – fascinating stuff.  No saddles, so that we could feel the horse and get used to gripping and leaning and manipulating the horse to where we wanted it to go, rather than the other way around. It is the most constructive hour and a half lesson I have ever had. I was even made to turn around on the horse, while it was walking, to feel my balance. Perhaps riding lessons are like this everywhere, but it’s the first time I have come across it and it all made so much sense and was very empowering. It’s no wonder that horses are used in therapy to help children with autism and drug addicts. By the end, I was able to have such control over my horse. Moving my horse five steps forward. STOP. Then 5 more quickly. STOP. Turn around while standing and trot and canter and even take step back wards. It was a very confidence-growing process.

Lunch was cooked up on a fire outside – vegetables from the garden with home made tortillas, salsa on the side. Puppies everywhere, chihuahuas and Alsatian mongrels, chickens roaming everywhere. This ranch is free and easy and we have been made to feel so at home. It is so refreshing to meet people who live out of the box, “living off the land”. The girls here are home-schooled and so friendly, able to chat and at ease with adults. Everything here is home-made, from the food to the benches and table we sit on.

We’d enjoyed our time at the ranch so much we decided to go back the following weekend to stay in their cabin in the woods – the kids in tents – this time for more lessons and then a ride out on Sunday, out of the parameters of the ranch to the hills beyond.

Millie stayed behind to play with Zoe and Cheyenne and the puppies too (far more interesting). I got a Moody Margaret AGAIN and was told to keep my horse away from everyone else’s. Thank goodness I didn’t witness any of what was going on with Gabriel, otherwise I would have lost my nerve. Mark recounted to me later what had happened… Sam our cowboy man, had decided to go off piste, which was brave of him considering our lack of skills. We had hit a tricky no end steep descent, but our horses’ feet were sinking in deep ashes like sand. So we decided to turn around and try another track. To get out of the sand quickly, Gabriel’s horse had started cantering up the hill, whereupon Gabriel lost his balance and slipped sideways from the saddle, clinging on for dear life to any strap he could find. But the horse continued up the hill and Gabriel was by this stage under the horse, fearing that the horses hoofs would tread on him. Anyway, at some stage he must have dropped to the ground and the horse, I am sure of it, was so determined NOT to tread on Gabriel that he stopped dead in his tracks. Gabriel was a bit unnerved but unhurt, he did get back in the saddle, only to come off again 10 minutes later, a little more upset this time. We return to the ranch and Gabriel is greeted like a hero. (I think this made it all worth while)

The volunteers all contribute for their accommodation and food, and help with the horses, building fences and helping on this organic farm. I wished I’d heard about this volunteering website before, this could have been an amazing option for us, a wonderful rural escape but alas all too late, we leave at the end of the week.

We have really enjoyed the company of Ramadatta and Anshu. They lived in the equally smelly cottage  at the end of the garden in House no 1, so we were immediately united in our complaints about the house we were renting. We hit it off immediately and enjoyed their company and their energy; and of course the kids were thrilled with their attentions and spoilings of their surrogate grandparents.. They have to be the most international couple I have ever met. She American, he Dutch, with a house in India and looking for somewhere new to live where Ramadatta isn’t kicked out every 3 months to renew his visa. Will it be San Cristobal? Or Guatemala? Will our paths ever cross again?  We are sad to say goodbye to them.

Last Friday, completely unbeknown to us there were two tornados in SC, which destroyed 412 houses. We were none the wiser (about the tornados), though we did witness the most extraordinary storm I have ever seen. We were in the courtyard of a cafe and Jemima said “someone has just thrown an ice cube at me…” Within a few minutes, hail stones the size of ice cubes, came rocketing from the skies, along with incredible rains – the streets turned to ice rivers, which rose above the levels of the pavement, which is saying something here as they are so steep – we almost thought cars were going to start floating down the street. It must have lasted for 45 minutes, then it all calmed and was still, as all the water subsided and the sun came out as though nothing had ever happened.

We have our last supper with our American friends from Michigan, and head to the bus station to get the 9.30 night bus to Oaxaca. Only I have got the bus times wrong and the bus has already departed. The staff at the bus terminal are brillant and call ahead to the Bus terminal in Tuxla, to ask the Oaxaca bus driver to wait  for us. The plan works – the bus is there waiting! Amazing! This would never have happened in the UK! This time it’s a deluxe bus with only 25 seats , which almost fully recline – worth the extra expense.   We all pile in and fall promptly asleep, except me that is. Unbeknown to me El Chapo, the bigwig drug lord has dramatically escaped from his jail on this night. This now explains the long road blocks and police checks, which add 2 hrs on to our journey.

Hasta la vista Magical San Cristobal.