The Daily Telegraph - Saturday, October 1, 2005

The ride of a lifetime, by Nick Haslam

Activity Holidays
Spain's landscape lends itself to a whole host of different activities. Nick Haslam explores the Alpujarras mountains by horse

With a smooth surge of power Camino broke into a fast canter, following the other horses pounding along the wide forest track. A mile later, we reined in, breathless and exhilarated on the edge of the plateau. Far below the calm Mediterranean stretched to a distant horizon. Dallas Love, pushing back her straw hat, pointed to the south east. "There," she said, "is Morocco and the Atlas mountains."

We are high in the Alpujarras of southern Andulasia on a late summer day. The air was crisp, with a tang of wild thyme from the dry earth beneath our hooves. Only three days before- but it seemed far longer - I had met Camino for the first time. Dallas, who has been riding these hills for more than 18 years, told me that the 16 hand chesnut gelding would be strong in the canter. "He´ll pull," she said. "You´ll have to be firm to hold him back." She has lived in the mountains for 36 years and is widely respected as a horsewoman and breeder. "Andalusian horses," she told me, "are the passion of my life. They´re sensitive, loyal and good with people."

Our group of eight riders had ridden that day up from her stables above the tiny village of Capiliera to the high country which lies just below the Sierra Nevada. Here, at 2,100 metres, the sharp outline of Spain´s highest peak Mulhacén were clearly visible above.

I had not ridden for some time but came to trust Camino's sure-footed gait as we skirted steep drops following ancient bridle paths first used by the Moors some 800 years ago. Shepherds and pack mules still use these tracks and we trotted past a cortijo, a simple one roomed house and summer grazing enclosure, were a weather-beaten man waved greetings to us.

Over the rise we tied the horses in a small copse of fir trees and had a picnic of chicken salad, drinking red wine with water cooled in the stream at our feet. Drawing on a cigarette, Dallas said that she bought most of her horses when they were two years old, and then let them run free for a couple of years to get them used to the mountain terrain. "I work with them for two years," she said. "Riding here is strictly not for beginners - people put their lives in my hands."

We rode on average 15 miles a day, and I found that my confidence as a rider was returning, due largely to Camino's good nature and the watchful eye of Dallas and her assistant Maria, who would carefully warn us of potential dangers on the track. Once, as I waited on a steep hillside for others to climb back into their saddles, Camino seemed to teeter. Dallas called down quickly from above. "Loosen your reins! He thinks you want to go backwards, and he can't." I promptly did so and sensed the large horse immediately relax.

At supper in Bubión, tired, saddle-sore but content, the group reviewed the high and low points of the day over a few bottles of wine. As I made short short work of a plato Alpujarreño, an energy-packed peasent dish of fried chorizo, onions, peppers and potatoes, Peter Clarke, a well travelled Mancunian, told me it was his second visit to the Alpujarras. "It's the always an adventure riding here," he said. "I have found nothing else like it in my travels."

Suzanne Faust, a sex therapist from Las Vegas, asked to borrow a homoeopathic healing oil I had been given by a friend. She had twisted her knee but was determined to keep going. "This is tough," she said with a rueful smile. "I should have done some more riding before I came out here."

They were to leave next morning for a two-day ride to Trévelez, the highest village in the Alpujarras. I reluctantly had to return home but the three days had done wonders for my riding. "Even the most experienced rider takes time to have confidence in his horse," said Dallas.

Now, that was one invitation I simply couldn't refuse.