It is shortly after noon when we leave our Airbnb, a bright and spacious house tucked at the end of a very quiet semi-paved street. Walking down the colorful streets still imbued with morning calm and slowness, we smile politely at the locals who gaze at us with curious eyes as we pass by the open doors of their houses, markets, shops. The very first day we stepped on the streets of Medellin, we realized that our looks and the cacophony of the Balkan languages we speak at a very Balkan pitch give away our foreignness. Jardin, however, is a tiny pueblo where everybody knows everybody and everybody knows when anybody is a tourist. It is day four in Colombia, and being a tourist in this country has been nothing short of an ecstatically colorful experience.

A few left and right turns and several exchanges of holas and buenos-diases later, we arrive at the travel agency to meet our guide who is to take us on our scheduled horseback riding tour to the mountains nearby. The guide is not there yet, so we start chatting with the owner, a down-to-earth amiable guy who, we quickly came to conclude, has an abundant knowledge of coffee. About ten minutes later, our first guide, Jose, arrives on a bicycle. Jose’s only task for the day apparently is to take us from the agency’s office to the spot where we are to meet our second and real guide, señor William.

Jose, like many Colombians we had met until then, is very chatty and curious. He wants to know where we are from and how we speak Spanish so well. Among other things, Jose warns us about the brutal Andean sun, and once he sees that none of us brought hats as (apparently) a must-have sun protection, he leaves us waiting at the corner of a street and goes to a shop to get some visor hats for us. Once we try them on, the three of us start joking about how we look like soccer moms, we scoff at the colors that don’t match our outfit, but nonetheless we are immensely grateful for something that would eventually turn out to make our horseback riding experience a bit more comfortable. 

Approximately ten minutes later, we meet THE guide. Señor William is a short slim guy with a fascinating amount of vitality. He walks around the horses with excitement, and his love for them flows out from every gesture he makes and every touch he gives them. His three horses are beautiful and at least two of them are friendly. Melisa, Olga, and I gasp as soon as we see them and we start to pet them elatedly.  

“Algun experiencia con cavallos?” asks señor William. Now, I had had only one horseback riding lesson in my life until that point, and that was the only time I had been on a horse. The three of us look at each other and release a unanimous “noooooo” accompanied by a heartfelt laughter that is supposed to convey the message that we are up for the adventure, regardless of our (lack of) experience with horses. To this we only get an “Ay ay ayyyy” as a response, an exclamation that got to be said many times during the journey and many months after the trip. He continues to direct us to our horses: Tu – esta, tu – esta, tu – aqui, while he points to the horses that each of us is supposed to take. I am assigned what to me seems like the prettiest and friendliest horse. I bask in happiness until it’s time to hop on the horse and start moving.

One would imagine that you would at least get a crash course on how to act and what to do when you are on a horse and are about to set off on a two-hour journey in some unfamiliar Colombian hills. The only “lesson” William shares with us is how to hold the ropes, how to make the horse go and stop, and the one-minute demo ends with a simple reassurance that basically the horses know what they are doing, when clearly none of the three of us do. We should just trust them, he says confidently, trust him, and enjoy the mountains of Jardin as we start riding uphill. 

And so begins our journey. At first, it seems nothing more than a journey of disaster and danger. One horse pulls forward, another horse stops, and we are all tied by ropes in one line. William is on his horse at the front to guide us, while the three of us, holding the rope of the horses for dear life, repeatedly ask why one horse stopped, why the other horse started going right, why the third horse does not want to move, and an endless outcry for help in the form of why and how questions. Señor William seems to be the calmest man on Earth at these moments. He directs us with patience, hops off his horse to help when we get stuck,  and every answer and reassurance starts with an affectionate “mi amor,” and “tranquilla, no tengas miedo” which makes us feel that at least we are spiritually taken care of. 

Jose was right about the Andean heat after all. We quickly experience that it truly doesn’t compare to the desert heat we are used to. Andean heat hits differently. The direct sunlight and the weighing humidity add to our discomfort. The unfashionable visor hats do help a tad, and the few shaded areas we pass by reset us just enough to remember that we have about two more hours to ride. Approximately twenty minutes into the ride, we seem to quiet down, the horses keep it straight and chill, and we are now more convinced that this afternoon adventure was not a bad idea after all.

As we start going further uphill, we pass by several idyllic houses perfectly blending among the lush green trees and plantain fields, which foreign visitors like us would consider “exotic.” As we pass by the banana fields, William gets off his horse, leaves the three of us in line and tells us to wait for him for a minute. Ok, todo bien, aquí esperamos. We do wait, but Melisa’s horse doesn’t. A few seconds after William disappears among the banana trees, this horse starts walking into the plantain field and our friend screams for help from our horse guide and expert. “Señoooooooor! Ayudaaaaaa! Ayayayayyy!” Olga and I just watch from aside helplessly. We are about to lose Melisa and her horse among the plantain trees when William comes running and helps her and the horse get back in the waiting line. He disappears among the banana trees again. He comes back after a minute or two with three beautifully ripe bananas. “Here,” he says, “I promised you would eat bananas from the tree on this trip,” and he hands each of us a banana just picked from a real banana tree growing just a few meters away from us! Just imagine the ecstatic faces of three girls who grew up in countries where bananas were a ridiculously expensive luxurious fruit that grew far far away! To this day I consider this to be one of the most precious moments of my life.

We have been riding for a little over an hour when we get to a section that is separated from the area where we stopped by a tiny gate. “Esta parte,” says William seriously, “es muy peligrosa. Hay que tener muuuucho cuidado.” Wait, wasn’t the previous hour-long ride steep and dangerous? Weren’t we going con cuidado already? I believe him, because his voice has a serious tone and he becomes more composed than before. He tells us to just relax, to not let the horses eat and to just stay close to each other, and todo va a estar bien. He reassures us that the horses know the way, they are very familiar with the terrain, and that they will find their camino if we trust them. “Confianza!” he exclaims! 

My brain doesn’t fully buy into this confianza comfort. The only thing I perceive at this moment is the less than a meter narrow and quite muddy path on which our horses will have to walk for a good chunk of the next 45 minutes to get us to the coffee farm, our final destination. I feel my heart starting to beat faster than before, and then I start panicking that my horse will sense my fear and become agitated because of my unease. I can’t see Olga’s and Melisa’s faces as I happen to be the first in the row, but we have later shared how the three of us were creating scenarios of our glorious death in the Colombian hills. 

Señor William opens a tiny gate made of several wire pieces put together to mark the entrance to this muddy stairway to godknowswhere. My heart races as my horse starts to slowly walk uphill. Not even thirty seconds pass before our horses start doing everything they are not “supposed” to do, as señor William warned. They stop to munch some grass; they start sinking in the soft trail. All I hear is Melisa screaming “ayayayyy,” myself releasing endless “leleleleeeee” and William deliriously repeating “Confianza! Vamonos! Confianza! Los cavallos conocen el camino! Confianza!” I forget to breathe. I am terrified. The shrieks I hear from my friends send me the message that they are a bit freaked out by now. The only thing I hear from William is that we need to trust. We need to trust the horses. We need to trust the way.

I do not remember when or why exactly, but at one point, I reach that “fuck it” moment. I forget about the fear, the path, the destination. I direct my attention to my horse and I soften my grip. Maybe this beautiful being really knows what it’s doing, I think to myself. I relax my body on the saddle. I take a deep breath and as I exhale, I lift my gaze from my horse. I notice the endless rolling hills. I soak the mesmerizing greenery. I once again feel the humidity, but this time I open my nose buds more intentionally and I smell the forest more deeply. I can’t remember if this lasted minutes or seconds. When I refocus on the horse, I notice that it starts walking more steadily. Confianza! Vámonos, mis amores, confianza! I hear William yell encouragingly. We repeat back laughing! Confianza! If the banana moment was one of the most precious ones in my life, this one was definitely one of the most comical and cathartic moments at the same time. 

And like everything else in life, we eventually pass through the steep, narrow and muddy path. We see the coffee farm at the corner, a few meters away from us. Our final destination. The much anticipated feeling of relief is not there, however. I am filled with excitement about drinking Colombian coffee with a view of the coffee fields, but I look at señor William and in an instant it dawns on me that I will never see this wonderful human again. Our guide – the person who took such wonderful care of us, the man who had never traveled anywhere outside of Jardin, and he never felt the need to because his pueblo was the most beautiful place in the world anyway – will turn around and go back to his Jardin. 

Once we get off the horse, William tells us that we have been some of his favorite turistas, and that he didn’t lose his patience with us because at least we were interesting and fun. Buenas vibras, he says. We get our coffee, we take our photos, and we tip our guide. All the things good tourists are expected to do, one would say. What we do not expect to see is the tears in William’s eyes when he is about to say goodbye to us. What we don’t expect to receive is a warm and affectionate hug from a kind grandfatherly figure. What we are left with when he starts walking back with his three horses is a deep feeling of gratitude for being cheered on and cared for thousands of miles away from home. 

Somehow this part of the trip is the first thing the three of us reminisce about when we talk about Colombia. We still jokingly exclaim “ay ay ayyyy!” to express shock, surprise, disapproval, and a plethora of emotional reactions for all kinds of situations. For us, William and his horses carved an experience in which one realizes that sometimes confianza is just everything. Trust is what you got, trust is what you need, and trust is what you can lean on. In the Colombian rolling hills or the Arizona desert plateaus, it seems like something or someone always knows the way. And sometimes tener confianza is the only way.