Horseback Riding

Because we didn’t have our translator and had to rely on Trey for a lot of the translating, doing an activity on the second day became a little adventurous. First, the decision. We chose horseback riding. Instead of inquiring about it, we waited on the street until someone came to us. After screening a few people, we found our man. He was an old local guy who said he could take us horseback riding. To do this required some negotiating, which my mom, Quincy, and Trey took care of. The plan was to take the trike to Station 1, there we would find the old man’s connection who would provide the service. That is what we did. I expected the stables similar to Oahu. You know, Happy Trails, Kawailoa farm, Malaekahana stable, Waimanalo…you know. F-that, that was not what we encountered. After riding on the trikes for about 20 minutes, we made a few turns passing this place called Dreamland. Then we made a right onto these side streets. It was sketchy to say the least. We entered a narrow ally on a dirt road. Both sides had run down living quarters. We stuck out like a sore thumb. There was a sign labeled stables, so I knew they weren’t going to take us and kill us. The horse ride was over $150 U.S. dollars total for all of us, about $18 per person. I think it came out to 6000 pesos. The ride was so worth it. It opened my eyes a little wider to a world we live in. Something I really need to do. Since I’ve been hiking on Oahu the past 3 years, my eyes have opened up to the island of Oahu, not only its beauty, but what it offers. The beautiful mountains give you a perspective of the good and bad things of Oahu, which I won’t get into right now. I digress, the horse ride was 30 minutes one way, and 30 minutes back. What I saw in those 30 minutes has changed me somewhat.

It wasn’t dramatic or anything. We went on horseback through the streets of Station 1. I saw a construction crew working on the side of the road. It looked like they were installing a pipe on the side of the road. A trench paralleled the road. They didn’t have power machines. Everything was done by hand. The metal rods they used for the road was measured and sawed off manually. The guy had a hand saw, measured what he needed to cut, and sawed it off. He must have done 20 pieces by the time we passed him. Who knows when he started. Another part of the crew filled the trench with gravel. They used a shovel and put the gravel in a small bucket. Every minute or so, I seen a guy empty his bucket into the trench. I thought wow, talk about perseverance. It must take years to get that section of the road done. The second thing I saw was this landfill. In the Philippines and probably many countries around the world, there is no trash pick up. People throw their trash either outside or in a landfill. The landfill was just nasty, full of trash. It didn't stink, but boy that was nasty. Yikes! We past it twice, pigs where there feasting. These weren't small pigs, but big ass pigs.