It seems it is not possible for me to go 21 days without at least some limited contact with horses. The horses in the busy city of Georgetown wander the outskirts in their free time, seeking out food and grass along the avenues and beside the canals. The horses are mostly used by hardware stores to transport heavy materials and many are struggling with weight, lameness and maltreatment. On the other hand, the mares and their foals looked contented enough and we did see one horse being led out to roll in some soft red sand and he looked particularly well.
In the savannah, the horses are used to manage the cattle and other animals and, in some places, for tourists to ride. The horses at the first lodge we went to were described as scrawny but strong but they did seem to be pretty thin. Good fibre, protein and supplementary feed is hard to come by but we were also told that horses that are not in work don't need extra feed.
At Karanambu the horses were a lot better off and they certainly don't need to carry much weight in the heat. I enjoyed meeting Martin the Vaquero and his two children who seem to have been born on horseback. With bare feet and stirrups way too long, they threw themselves into the saddle before setting off at a decent gallop.
