The horses look fabulous and if poor Kathy Brunjes would arrive, all would be complete.
Kathy spent days getting here, due to weather, missed connections and delays. Hopefully Tom Hutchinson is picking her up as I write this,
Steve Rojek, Becky Hart, Vonita Bowers, Kyle Gibbon and I arrived yesterday. We packed into a car with our luggage piled to the ceiling for a short trip to Atlantida to dump the stuff then on to the venue.
Naturally we missed people and ended up with no credentials, but bumped into Valery Kanavy and Flavia. They invited us to tag along to a horse auction rather than staring at each other.
There were close to 30 Uruguan bred Arabs and partbreds standing tied to a rail, all in good weight and healthy. The ages were from late yearlings to 9 year olds. Before we knew it we were settled into a table and fed with empanadas and wine and chorizo and marvelous steak chunks.
The auction was entertaining and credentials awaited us upon our return, just across the road, to the venue.
Most of us scurried around getting organized, putting up paddocks in our quarantine area and visiting, then most of us wandered off for a silly dinner, with not one of us even slightly versed in Spanish. It was very good in spite of all.
Today our riders were assigned to ride at 9 and again at 3. Tom, Steve, Kyle and I peeled off to pick up Kathy between rides times. No Kathy, but we did manage to get mixed up in a funeral procession and took an interesting route back. The country is serious farmland with cattle, sheep, goats,, corn, sorghum, and tons of veggie gardens. I found it extremely appealing.?
No mishaps or excitment on the second ride and the horses/grooms had lessons in trotting out. Woooohoooo Kathy just walked in!!!!! Life is good.
