Canadian Olivia Cazes wants to be the first woman to horseback ride across the Americas | Canada Voices

In the Patagonian Desert, the land stretches flat and endless, broken occasionally by a ribbon of blue river or lake. The wind rarely stops. Water is never guaranteed and at night the stars appear in impossible numbers.

This is the landscape Olivia Cazes has chosen for the opening stretch of a journey that will take years.

In the southern interior of Argentina, the 30-year-old Canadian wakes before dawn, checks her horses, and decides how far they can go.

“It’s a place where I feel both grounded and very small,” says Cazes, an anthropologist and adventurer attempting to ride on horseback the length of the Americas – from Ushuaia, known as the world’s southernmost city, to Alaska, following the Pan-American Highway.

It’s a journey of roughly 25,000 kilometres, one that would take 26 hours by plane or about a month by car. On horseback, she estimates it will take up to seven years, with breaks in between. If successful, she will become one of a handful of people in history who have accomplished this – and the first woman to complete the crossing as the primary rider.

“The sunrises and sunsets are amazing,” she says. “But it’s the silence I appreciate most. It’s just us and the horses. I feel so alive here.”

Cazes began the expedition in early 2025 with Australian cowboy Ben Hann, whom she met while working on a ranch in Alberta. The two shared what she calls a “crazy dream,” but partway through last year, Hann returned home due to health issues.

Cazes continued alone. She returned to Canada over the holidays, then came back to Argentina in January, 2026, to resume the journey.

This time, she brought her mother, Esther Dandonneau, who had planned to stay for a month but remains in Argentina, drawn – like her daughter – to the openness of the landscape, the people and the country’s deep horse culture.

“My mom’s been around horses her whole life, just as I have,” says Cazes, who was raised on a family ranch in Armagh, about an hour from Quebec City. “She’ll be heading home to Canada soon, and I’m going to miss her. The journey is hard and tiring, but we’re sharing great moments. We’ve always had a strong bond, but it’s getting even stronger.”

So far, Cazes has covered roughly 2,850 km and replaced 70 horseshoes. At her current pace of 20 to 25 km a day, she expects the journey to take about five more years.

Progress is slow by necessity. Everything depends on the horses. “They’re my companions, my family,” she says of Milo, Bonsai, Cacique and Bigote – the latter means “mustache” in Spanish, because he has one.

The Patagonian Desert, also known as the Patagonian Steppe, spans roughly 673,000 square km, making it the largest desert in Argentina and one of the largest in the world – a windswept plateau of scrub and stone stretching across the country’s south.

The scale can be disorienting. Land is often privately owned in vast tracts, spanning thousands of hectares at a time. It is also an environment that demands constant calculation. Life on the road is dictated by weight, distance and water. Every item must be considered. Too much gear burdens the horses; too little leaves Cazes and her horses exposed.

“It’s about having enough to get out of problems, but not too much,” she says.

Each morning begins with the animals: checking for injuries, watching for sores, packing gear, rationing food – feed for the horses; fruits, nuts, pasta and dry food for herself and ensuring there is enough water for the day ahead.

“If we miscalculate water or food, it can lead to very tough situations,” she says.

In between are long hours in the saddle, scanning the horizon for the next water source, a ranch, a town or a place to camp. Travelling this way requires a different mindset.

“We’re codependent, their well-being and ours are tightly woven together,” she says. “They need us as much as we need them, every hour of the day.”

At 75, I moved to Spain with my family. When they left, I stayed

For Cazes, much of this has been learned in real time. “Packing a horse, caring for them in environments not suited to them, thinking about horses 24/7, feels the same to me, but different.” An avid outdoorswoman – climbing, trekking, trail running, cycling – she describes the expedition as a convergence of all her skills, constantly testing her judgment.

Each day brings new variables and the margin for error is thin. “It’s a lot of weighing risk versus reward,” she says. “We can be out of town and without cell service for days.”

Yet the isolation is balanced by unexpected connection. Drivers slow to wave or honk encouragement. Strangers offer water, food or feed for the horses. Sometimes, she says, they are “saving our day.”

She recalls an instance when friends she had met the previous year drove 450 km just to bring supplies and share a meal. “It’s crazy how welcoming people are,” says Cazes, who speaks Spanish fluently. “You make friendships very quickly out here.”

Not long ago, that generosity marked a milestone. For her 30th birthday, Cazes and her mother were welcomed into a rural home for an asado, a culinary tradition of slow-roasting beef over an open flame. They opened a bottle of Champagne and shared stories late into the evening.

Moments like that sustain her – but they are not the reason she started.

“As an anthropologist, I want to keep learning about horse culture and rural traditions, and eventually put my observations into a book about horses and culture in the Americas,” says Cazes, who is finishing her master’s thesis, while on the road.

Her motivation also extends beyond academia. “I want to inspire women to get out there, to fight fear and social expectations around extreme sports and adventure,” she says. “I want to follow my own crazy dreams and share the process.”

In a month, she will leave Patagonia and continue north. She plans to spend part of the summer in Kyrgyzstan working as a travel guide, leading horseback trips to visit nomadic communities, then return to South America with some savings and the next stretch of the journey ahead. Cazes is funding the expedition herself, taking jobs when she needs extra cash.

“I’m not stressed about Argentina. It’s a safe country with very welcoming people,” she says. “I know that the closer we get to Central America, the more crime there will be. I’ll adapt, because my goal is to complete the Pan-American Highway without losing my life.”

Travelling the Americas on horseback – from Canada to Argentina (or vice-versa) – is something many people have tried over the years, but few have completed successfully. “It’s rare because it’s such an endurance test and it takes years to complete,” says Cazes.

To date, the Long Riders’ Guild, an international association representing equestrian explorers, says only a handful of people have gone the full distance, including Brazilian-Canadian Filipe Masetti Leite – who took eight years and finished at the Calgary Stampede in 2020 – as well as American Louis Bruhnke and France’s Vladimir Fissenko, who rode together for five years and finished in 1993.

Most who have attempted the journey on horseback, in part or in full, say they were inspired by Swiss teacher Aime Felix Tschiffely, who rode from Buenos Aires to New York in the 1920s.

Cazes says each day brings new risks and new rewards. “There was and always will be hardships, a lame horse, injuries or sickness, endless forms and customs processes. Many times, I’ve asked myself, ‘Are these problems worth it?’”

The answer comes in quieter moments.

“When I wake up in the mountains or in the infinite steppes, watching the rising sun warm my bones, I feel like the last human on Earth,” she says. “Or when I fall asleep in my sleeping bag, listening to my horses chewing, looking at the millions of stars above us, I know it’s all worth it.”