Our vision as horseback safari specialists

At African Horse Safaris, we’re experts in Africa because we’ve experienced it for ourselves. We’ve travelled across our destinations, slept in the lodges and camps, ridden the horses, followed the trails and, most importantly, built personal relationships with the incredible people who make these adventures so special.

That same approach is at the heart of South American Horse Safaris. We’re getting to know the people behind the estancias, the horsemen and women, the guides and the families who have spent generations living alongside these landscapes. We’re talking to them regularly, learning their stories, understanding their horses and discovering what makes each place unique.

Some adventures change the way you see the world. Others change the way you want to experience it. South America from the back of a horse does both.

South America isn’t a destination we’ve discovered from a brochure. It has been a long time coming. We’ve spent years hearing stories from riders who had fallen in love with South America, talking to the people making the riding happen and watching the continent’s extraordinary horses and landscapes slowly climb higher and higher on our own bucket lists.

And we’re building South American Horse Safaris around the people who know this continent from the saddle. At the heart of that is Paul Coudenys, who brings more than a decade of experience riding, travelling and working with horses across South America. Paul is already part of the African Horse Safaris family, with many of our riders having ridden alongside him on adventures in Mexico and Brazil. This isn’t a new relationship, it’s one that has grown over years of shared adventures, trust and a genuine love of riding.

We’re also working with Jakob von Plessen, a familiar face to many African Horse Safaris riders, having spent years guiding horse safaris in Kenya before bringing his expertise back to his native Argentina. He has one foot in Africa and another firmly planted in Argentina. Isabel first rode alongside Jakob in the Masai Mara, and it was through those days in the saddle that she began to hear about his life and adventures in Argentina. It sparked a curiosity about this other continent, its horses, its landscapes and the kind of riding that Jakob knew so well. So when the opportunity came to follow that trail to Patagonia and climb back into the saddle with him in Argentina, it felt like the perfect way to begin discovering South America for ourselves.

In January, Isabel finally ticked off one of her own bucket-list adventures and headed to ride the Patagonia trail. This was the Patagonia she had dreamed about in every sense: huge skies, rugged mountains, remote trails and incredible riding. Technical terrain that asks questions of both horse and rider. Steep climbs, rocky ground, river crossings and those moments when you have to trust your horse completely. You look across the mountains, turn around to see just how far you’ve climbed and realise that your horse has carried you somewhere that few people have ever been!

Then came the Lanín Volcano Trail, with some incredible views, ever-changing landscapes and long dreamy canters. From there, Isabel travelled to Estancia Río Quillén, spending time with the people and horses that make this corner of Patagonia so special, before heading to Los Potreros. And then she fell in love with Argentina all over again. With the horses. With the estancia. With the landscape. With the food, the people and the extraordinary feeling of stepping into a completely different way of life.

These aren’t simply places we’ve found and added to a website. They’re places we’ve ridden, visited, talked about, dreamed about and, in some cases, struggled to leave. And we’re still exploring. Because the more we discover, the more we realise just how special this continent is and we can’t wait to share it with you!