The Great Trek
26 August 2025
The Riding
The Accommodation
Do you have any comments about the accommodation and food?
The tent camp was definitely the best option, some of the houses we stayed at had quite low comfort and facilities, but this we were prepared for. Perhaps worse for some of the French ladies :-).
Food was also as expected, not much variations but still enough food and no problems. We did bring some protein bars but did not really need them.
Before Your Holiday
Did you have all of the information you needed to:
How could we improve the quality of pre-holiday information that we send?
The practical information we received was very good, much better than what was received by other participants from their French operators. However, we did not expect it to be a totally French experience... it occurred to us as we arrived that this was sold in as a French speaking trip where we were the only two who did not speak French. After day #3 we managed to have the guide translating to English so we could understand the program for the days, and all worked much better from there.
[In The Saddle - the ride operator normally advises us in advance of the trips which are being sold as French speaking trip so we are sorry that you found it so. The guide definitely should have spoken in English to you from the beginning.]
Due to bad weather before we arrived, some roads were not accessible by car/luggage lorry, so the program was slightly changed underway but all this was well explained and the guide did an excellent job in caring for all of us.
How could we improve the way we handled your booking and payment?
Booking and payment worked well, no need to change anything there.
Do you have any other feedback for us?
In general the country was "flooded" with plastic garbage so the nature experience was a bit reduced but one can of course not put that in the trip promotions :-). The people however, was fantastic welcoming and helpful, always smiling when we passed them on the way or when we came to camp.
The guides were really caring and helpful to all participants all the time.
Roy (this is their first In The Saddle holiday) An unusual ride to remember | Very good horses, strong and enduring, steady in the steeper mountains and canyons.
Some days took longer than planned, mainly due to an accident on day 3 where two persons fell off under gallop and from then we took it more slowly.
Nice mix of various terrain, a bit boring sometimes when we had many days of flat plains.
In general, the culture of caring for the horses is totally different from what we are used to in western Europe, but the horses we rode were very well taken care of. Yann seem to be a serious operator.