GALLOP TOWARDS HAPPINESS
Poured by
Aneta Perevska
Imagine lungs full of fresh air
Imagine the sound of a gallop, instead of the keyboard sound.
Imagine green mountain peaks instead of city grayness.
Imagine reins instead of a steering wheel.
Now, stop imagining and start planning your next, completely different weekend on a horse back trotting by film landscapes.
Yes, utterly feasible and even necessary escape from the office desk, the traffic jam and lying in front of the TV with hours. Yes, it’s time for activity, friendship and calorie burning.
Excuse me? Do I hear an excuse like: “Well, I can’t ride a horse”? Poor excuse which is not sufficient this time because only one telephone call separates you from an arrangement with a team of professionals who will take care that you successfully gallop away, even if you have never come near a handsome mane creature before.
Where? To a perfect destination for such weekend escape – the beauty Bistra. There you can find everything you need to stop imagining and effectuate the above mentioned. There are horses, film landscapes, and also people who will teach you to fall in love with a handsome mane creature. In addition, there is no Wi-Fi.
Your “cowboy” experience can be improved by the Cavalry Club “Bistra Galichnik”, which organizes tours from May to October. You can choose one of the two routes:
- To the sheepfold which is about 7 kilometers away from the club. The tour lasts 5-6 hours, 4 of which are active horse riding, with a pause at the sheepfold.
- To the old church St. Petka hidden in the thick forest above the place Smedovica which is 5 kilometers away from the club.
If you have weak or no experience in horse riding, don’t worry, because you can get appropriate training that lasts at least an hour. Then you can check whether you have watched cowboy films in vain or you have remembered what are: saddle, stirrup, rein and harness.
Wait! That is not enough. Practical training is also needed. Forget fear, follow the instructions and in a very short time you will be so relaxed that you will wish to put a stalk of straw in your mouth. It won’t be easy at the beginning, but not even John Wayne was born on a horse. Steps by step, they will teach you how to mount a horse, how to start, dismount a horse. No worries, safety equipment, i.e. a helmet will be given to you by the club and you should dress appropriately which means long trousers and high boots. And don’t forget to put sunscreen, hat and certainly a bottle of water in your rucksack.
You ride in a line led by a guide. The horses are mountainous and tame and they can return trust. They are not very tall and they are adapted to such mountainous and stone regions. They function on the principle of a herd which means they always follow one another and that dictates the speed of movement imposed by the guide which, eventually, contributes to greater safety while horse riding.
Believe your four-legged friend; yield yourself to the beauties around you. Furthermore, try to remember everything, to soak up every second of the time spent there because you know well what awaits for you down in town. Use the phone only for taking photos of the scenery. All right – and for selfies, as well.
On the way pictures will change as if from a film shot by an awarded cinematographer. You will wish to buy some land and build a small house where you can reach old age. Maybe you will wish for a longer break on some of the meadows to drink some water and return the needed liquids you lost by sweating on the sun.
You will surely wade into a herd of sheep, maybe you will be annoyed by little flying insects, but you will quickly forget about them when you look up towards the blueness which you rarely see in the city. A mixture of smells, clean, natural and enjoyable scents of untouched nature will reach you. Do not light up a cigarette.
Don’t be ashamed to enter a conversation with the others in the line. Maybe exactly by some of them you will find out that three-day tours with the possibility to spend the nights are organized. That’s right – you have the option to spend the night in the wonderful surrounding villages: Selce, Lazarapole, Janche, Tresonche… So you have the opportunity to ride and see several famous tourist places like: Duf waterfalls or the monastery St. Jovan Bogorski. And you know what? Tasting the wonderful Galichnik cheese is included in the tours.
On the half-way you will start to feel hungry. You will begin champing and imagining the taste of the famous bakrdan and Galichnik cheese, the domestic yogurt and really soft bread. You will ask: “How long to go?” but you will realize that it is not important because you enjoy and you know that the gastronomic meeting is unavoidable. However, do not just sit stiff on the saddle but follow the horse’s movements and make space for new calories.
The peaks of Bistra, Krchin, Stogovo will open in front of you and also the panoramic view on the village of Galichnik, the canyon on the river Radika and a lot of forest streams. If you are lucky, maybe on the horizon you will see a herd of wild horses and you will envy their gracefulness and freedom they enjoy. The moment you reach out for your phone in order to show off on Instagram with a photo of a wild horse with uplifted front legs they have already galloped away to some other horizon. You will regret that but you will be happy because there are herds that enjoy the freedom. That will make you caress your reined friend.
And then the guide shouts: “We have arrived!”, but what you hear is: “Food!” After several hours of riding you will feel the land under your feet and it will be unusual to you. You leave the horse to rest and the smell of bakrdan leads you (sound of jamming of an audio tape).
We apologize for the interruption of the program, but we must leave something out so that you experience that by yourself. We led you so far and now you are left on your own to make the right decision and to write this unusual adventure in your calendar. It is a chance to show off that you have spent an active weekend with a lot of friends and breathing in the same rhythm with the nature. Who knows, you may like it and you may wish to apply for the winter horse riding tours on Vodno, too.
It is up to us to offer an entertaining option for an active life but the choice between being a fit person, rich in experience or one whose only mileage is scrolling the computer mouse and changing TV channels is ultimately yours.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and do not necessarily represent the views of Pivara Skopje.
