In my particular case, travelling for work implies multi-day riding tours, during which I get to take people away from civilisation and into the wild, take care of a whole herd of horses and sleep in cosy mountain huts, some of which have neither water nor electricity.
My first "long tour" ended yesterday and my body and spirit are broken. Think 18-hour working days without breaks, 16 people, 47 horses (each of them with four hooves, but we'll get to that later) and a multitude of issues, problems, minor catastrophes and critical situations, all of which need to be dealt with in a friendly, competent, trust-inspiring manner, ideally without anyone actually noticing that there was a crisis.
As this was my first tour of this kind, I did not have much of a clue what to expect, how to prioritise or, since we're at it, how to herd a flock of free-running horses. Other personal challenges included driving a trailer for the first time, telling the approx. 20 more or less identical looking dark bown horses apart and keeping the happy smile when baring my teeth would have been a much more natural reaction.
As to prioritisation and speed, this is something that I will learn as I go on more tours. I like to know what is expected of me, so that I can act rather than react, but I also understand that theoretical knowledge is not much good here. This will come.
Herding is actually quite fun. It's a 2-person job, one in the front and one in the back of the herd. The front rider shows the horses the way and once they have figured out what is expected of them, generally, they will follow in a nice orderly line. Unless they get excited or one of the other myriad exceptions. However, they will behave as horses do and their behaviour can be predicted to a certain extend, which gives you a bit of a head start, at least. The challenge here is to keep the herd behind you and stop them from running past you as, even if they are excited and at full speed. The person in the back collects any horses that have dropped out of the line to wander off on their own, have stopped to graze or are not keeping the general direction. As in the front, as long as the herd keeps in line, this is not a hard thing to do, but, again, as in the front, the problems start when the herd spreads out horizontally and you have to run back and forth to collect horses on both sides. Both jobs really depend on the horse you are riding, some of them will do a great job, understand the situation and will actively make your life easier, others prefer to make it more interesting by adding to the struggle.
Let's not kid ourselves though, even on the nicest, softest and most compliant horse, a whole day on horseback is physically demanding, especially if you also take Icelandic weather into consideration. It took us around 8 hours a day (including breaks) to reach our next location and this would have been plenty. However, as our horses could not always stay in the same place we were, in some cases, the other colleague taking care of the herd and I had another 2+ hours of pushing the horses towards their destination for the night.
On the last morning, I found myself in the unfortunate situation of having to drive a trailer for the first time, it was a huge 4x4 car with a huge trailer attached. Let's say it did not go so well. I fully expected to end up in a ditch somewhere, and of course, we were already late as it was. I did not end up in a ditch. But I did get lost and had to reverse the bloody thing for 150 meters around a bend. I tried for 15 minutes and gave up when it was waving to me through the driver's window. It truely does behave like a worm. So instead of backing it out, I drove over a field to turn it around and hoped that nobody would come out and yell. Nobody did. But had they, I wonder if I could have claimed denial of assistence, seing that more or less every person in the countryside can drive these things, so instead of yelling, they could have just lent me a hand. Here's to hoping I don't have to do that again anytime soon, at least not before I have had some time to practise.
So, for better illustration of the general craziness, a typical day in the life of a guide might look something like this:
07:00 Wake up, brush teeth (if you can find the toothbrush), get dressed, pack all your stuff
07:30 Eat breakfast standing up while packing saddle backs and solving last minute problems, make sure you have everythng with you that you need for the rest of the day, check you have the horse list, or else hell will break loose
08:00 Start catching horses and hand them out to people, realise that some of them have dropped a shoe and need shoeing before we start. Start cursing the day. Hit your thumb with a hammer and continue shoeing with the blood running down (get extra credits for badass-ness)
08:15 Get yelled at by some cottage responsible because some of your guests forgot to take their shoes off when going to the bathroom
08:30 Help people prepare their horses, make sure the saddle is not on backwards, the girth is tight and in the right place, the noseband allows the horse to breathe and the reins are clipped into the right place. Look up and realise it might rain, recommend rain gear, put on rain gear yourself
09:00 Get people on their horses, introduce them to their particular horse's needs and character
09:03 Realise that you need a horse, too. Quickly throw a saddle on said horse
09:05 Start riding
09:30 Sky has cleared up, there is no rain. instead the sun is coming out. People start complaining about being too hot in their rain gear and blaming you for the inaccurate weather forecast. There is no grass, so it's almost impossible to stop the herd, people will just have to deal
10:15 You shed liters of sweat and are now about as wet as if it had rained, only from the inside. You are slowly stewing in your own juices, painfully aware that last night's hut had no shower
10:45 You stop to let the horses eat. Nobody takes off their rain gear, because a light drizzle has started
11:00 Everyone gets back on their horses, you continue the tour
11:30 The sun is back, people are complaining about being too hot again, you start praying for Hekla, the volcano in sight, to erupt and make everything evaporate in molten lava
12:30 You stop for lunch, shoe some more horses. The fxxxxxx shoes are too big, so you have to bang them smaller. Alas, no hard surfaces around, all grass and soft lava stone. Also, the hammer breaks. You improvise by using the car jack (thankfully the kitchen car has met you for lunch today) and start wishing the ferrier a slow and painful death
13:10 You're already late and you haven't eaten yet, because you have been busy with the shoeing and general craziness, so you shove half a sandwich into your face while catching new horses. The guests sit around and enjoy the sun, they have taken off their rain clothes. You are still wearing yours, no time yet.
13:45 Everyone is back on their horses, you have been riding for 5 minutes, Somebody complains that their horse isn't doing this and that and that they don't like red horses because all red horses are bad. You give them your horse and take theirs
14:00 The apocalypse is upon you and it brings heavy, horizontal rain, so you rush to the nearest grass field to be able to stop the herd long enough for people to get back into rain gear
14:25 Everyone is back on their horses once more
15:30 It's still raining like there is no tomorrow. Your rain gear is waterproof, but the rain gets in around your neck, slowly soaking into your jumper. It also soaks your gloves and from there continues up your sleeves. You did bring extra gloves, but they are in the pocket of your rain gear. Unfortunately, since you are sitting on a horse, the rain has pooled in your lap and has run into the pockets of your rain gear, soaking your extra gloves as well the extra equipemt, almighty horse list and the afternoon snack you had stored there
15:45 Last change of horses for the day while we take a quick break to let them eat. Everything is soaked. People are starting to talk about hot showers. There will be hot water at tonight's place
17:30 You have made it to your destination. The guests and main guide are being picked up to do some sightseeing. The two other guides stay behind with the herd and push them towards the field they will spend the night in. Just another two hours of riding at high speed in torrential rain
20:00 You have made it to the hut and help with the final preparations for dinner. Herd is happily grazing around 15 km away, less that halfway from where you stopped the tour this afternoon. You will have to go pick the horses up early tomorrow, so they'll be here when the guests have finished their breakfast
20:30 Dinner. Friendly guest offers shot of whiskey
21:30 Evening entertainment: singing with the guests, teaching them À Sprengisandi, a traditional Icelandic folk song about riding through the desert between two glaciers
23:00 Guests are settling down for the night. Time to plan the horse list for tomorrow, which rider to match with which horses. Occasional swig of whiskey to help with exhaustion and motivation. Hum À Sprengisandi to yourself
01:00 Shower, Go to bed. Pass out
Everything hurts again, especially my brain from questions like "Can we drive somewhere with people tonight?" when we're about a 2 hours' drive away from electricity and running hot water, not even thinking civilisation. We also had one car with 5 seats for 20 people. Common sense is sadly lacking in some people.
Why do you book a tour like this, away from everything, if you need some night life? How do you end up on a long riding tour in Iceland if you are not willing to compromise personal comfort and rough it for a few days? It's impossible to bring all the comforts of civilisation to such remote places, at least if they are supposed to remain remote. One of the saddest things I saw on this trip were the phone and electricity lines scarring the surrounding, wonderful nothingness.
All this said and taking into consideration that I'm still in the recovery phase, this was a fantastic trip. Some places were so exceptionally beautiful I felt myself choking up. I love the Icelandic wastelands up in the highlands and experiencing them on horseback was much more intense than on a bus ride with 50 other people.
I actually found myself weeping at some point and thanking the universe (or what-/whomever) for giving me the balls to come here. So this is good.
Was it a ton of work, painful, challenging, difficult and harder than I had anticipated? Yes.
Was it worth it? Hell, yeah!
