My foot in the stirrup, my hands on the saddle, my body pushes up, the other leg swings around, locks into the stirrup and there I am, Meghan, on a horse! We set out on those lonely, dirt trails in that slow horse putter like we were on the range to a jumping cantor. I tense up and have a pounding headache. It doesn't leave me until I learn to relax my torso into the seat. Then I gallop.

Gallop! The throwing of beast legs into the future, so fast you can't make them out like the pattern of a hubcap on a freeway car - hooves on padded dirt, "Putump! Putump! Putump!" The smell of a horse, like sweat and moist hay in stables. Gallop! My hands hang on to the saddle's black handlebar between my legs for dear life. My fingers clench so hard they give eight blisters and rub them raw till I learn to press my legs together onto Pumba's furry sides with my inner thighs. Galloping, I lean forward, my body rolls front and back in a wave like a swaying snake.

The wind rushes past and tosses my braid and dries my exposed teeth on my plastered grin. We take flight in unison, my butt in the air. I'm almost standing. The next moment I'm bouncing down on smooth curved leather. I'm galloping! I live for this part. I'm flying at light speed. The wind proves it - racing through brush and forest, past old diamond mines, amid rainbow wildflowered fields, through shallow riverbeds. My blue Converse gets splashed. It's better than on a bike or a motorcycle because the forest is zooming by and I'm on top of a powerful animal that was made for running.

I feel the urge of a "Yee-hawww!" from deep in my soul and understood that the mantra of cowboys is as natural and instinctual as sleeping when you're tired. I identify with them and know I can easily dig being a cowgirl if only the theme music wasn't so depressing.

We rode for two hours till we came to a wide tannin river that slithered north to rocky canyons. The saddles came off to let their sweaty spines breathe. The rope in my hand, I pulled Pumba by his collar and jaw to the river. He climbed in with me and we swam in that cold, running water side by side. I felt like Bastian and Falcor in The Never Ending Story until the thunder of his hoof shot forward in his paddle and kicked my thigh with enough force to leave me mobile but alarmed.

In my coral bikini, I floated onto his soaked back and laid down against the swim, my arms and legs straddling the river beneath him. Pumba swam and I rode piggyback. What a rush! To be holding my horse while he's swimming through the cold tannin flow of Lancois.

Isabel crawled onto her swimming horse as well but when he hopped up onto the sandy riverbank, she got thrown off and went flying backwards into the river. It delivered us a good laugh.

The group sat down upon flat slabs of granite. Isabel, Pedro, and I ate fried egg, cheese, and okra sandwiches and chocolate. Our comrades ate grass and drank river water. I 'rock-hopped' barefoot over rolling pink and teal boulders that cluttered the head of the river as I knew it. The rocks. Artistic creations of perfection. A omniscient blend of rainbow and streaks, shapes and sizes. God must be a Van Gogh fan for he placed turquiose stripes amid burnt oranges, then streaked it with a bolt of charcoal lightning. And all this on a smooth oval of compressed earth.

I mounted Pumba, now dry and clean. Buried my nose in his neck and inhaled his scent like catnip pheromones for his lover's meow. Two clicks of my tongue and Pumba is galloping again. Carrying me back home through that wild day's sunset.

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