Yesterday was a day of transition – since I leave to take a boat down the Amazon in a couple of days, I packed up my bags, said my goodbyes, and handed Chicharrita over to her new stewards. I spent the day walking the backstreets of Barichara on the edge of town and met some new friends:

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Well, actually yesterday there were only three in this little pen. I was shocked at how skinny these guys were. Apparently it’s been really tough around here for them to find grass as there’s been very little rain. And I guess it’s also tough for the owners to feed them…

Anyways, it broke my heart to see these poor guys on such tough times. I turned around and walked to the market and bought a few pounds of carrots, apples and a loaf of bread (I wanted something with higher calorie content than just vegetables). However, when I returned someone had opened the pen so my three amigos could go to the farm and get saddled up. Not wanting to insult the farmer by feeding his horses right in front of him, I decided to return today instead. This turned out to be a good thing because I didn’t quite realize how many carrots I’d bought in relation to horses yesterday and was happy to feed 6 more of them.

This guy was clearly the boss and made it tough for the others to get their share, so we air dropped carrots and pieces of bread for the other horses (which wasn’t brilliant as many were skittish and veggies flying through the air beside them didn’t calm any nerves).IMG_0838