Day 4 Part 2 - Horse Back Riding

After the balloon ride in the morning, we decided to take a horseback riding at 11. When we got to the ranch, I mounted a horse called Nuray. Julee had Yildiz and our guide Ilkish had a horse called Chichek. We rode into the Rose Valley and White Valley, each named after the color of the stone canyons in the valley. Nuray is constantly hungry so would eat at any chance she had. I had to tighten the rein and fight with her at times since she would leap off the track to get to her favorite plants. After about 20 minutes, I figured out the two things she loved to eat. One was a type of grass, the other was the grey tiny leaves from the Russian olive tree. There was nothing to hold on to from the saddle, so I used the right hand to hold the front of the saddle and the left to hold the rein. I later managed to not hold on to the saddle at all. Every time after Nuray nibbled another mouthful, she would happily gallop and at one time it went so fast, my camera bounced hard on the saddle, the lense cap flew off. I learned to say "S-----" to make her go slow, left tap on the belly to go faster to the right and right tap to head to the left. The scenery was so gorgeous. Yellow and purple wild flowers bloomed below the pink gorges. Everywhere we went, we saw different rock formations in unbelievable shapes and forms. Ilkish said Nuray was the problem child, Chichek was the crazy one and Yildiz was the slow one. Speaking about slow - Ilkish told me Yildiz was slow even as a baby at the ranch. Ilkish clicked his tongue and yelled at Yildiz to fasten up but Yildiz was taking his own sweet time. Regardless of what Julee did, Yildiz refused to move any faster than a turtle. He was so slow, Julee was always about 2 to 5 minutes behind me. Ilkish would let Chichek run wild for a few minutes when I let Nuray eat at her heart's content.

*To prove the point of how slow Yildiz was, we could play a game called "Where is Julee" to find where Julee was in the photos...

It must have been a comfy relaxing ride, no wonder Julee was taking a nap.

We rode for two hours in the valley and above the cliff before returning to the ranch. As soon as we got in the car to go back to the hotel, it started pouring but we had all the sunshine we needed to enjoy the ride.