Day with the Gaucho

Yesterday the coordinator from the University of San Andres organized a trip for us to go spend a day with Gauchos.  A gaucho is a loose equivalent to the term cowboy in the United States.  It was a two hour bus ride from the north of the city, but I had my Nook and watched Young Adult.  Which, by the way, I thought was supposed to be funny - turns out... it was depressing.

As soon as we got off the bus we were greeted with Empanadas and Wine... so I knew I was going to like this place.

It was the first time since we've been here that we haven't been completely surrounded by buildings and people.  It was a fantastic change of pace and the people there were very hospitable.

Once we got out to the barn we were able to mount horses and take a little tour of the grounds.  This was my horse and they were all pretty well behaved, but we had two people in our group who decided to take their horses on a run... and thus our horses naturally wanted to run.

This is the hall that we sat in while we ate the lunch that was provided.  Basically it worked like this:  they had salad and wine sitting on the table that we shared and then they just kept bringing around slices of meat until you were full.  It wasn't as good as some of the types of restaurants in the states that do this same type of thing, but a) it was included in the study abroad program and b) they raise their own beef there and cook it.

After lunch we got to watch two dancers perform to music played by some of the other gauchos.  They were pretty good and we all were able to join in at the end.  The girl picked me to dance with twice... but that probably is because there are only 5 guys on this trip - so selection was limited.

After the dancing extravaganza we headed back outside to watch one of the gaucho shows.  While walking out there we passed by this horse, which I think was the most beautiful - I just loved her colors so I thought I would share a picture.

The gauchos would ride really fast down the track and then try and catch a golden ring with a red bow tied to it.  The narrator told us that this was a way that was devised for the gauchos to determine who was going to be able to ask the woman to marry him.  The first one that was able to hold on to the ring... got to propose to the lucky lady.  This prevented actual fighting and bloodshed.

Natalie was the first girl that a ring was given to - which meant she was required to give him a peck on the cheek.

At the end of the day, this gaucho showed us a demonstration on how they used to tame horses.  It required him to kiss the horse and rub its body.  In this picture he go the horse to go down to the ground and roll over while he maintained his position on top.  It got pretty sensual at some points which made it a little awkward to watch, but it was still a good show.

This was the best coordinated outing so far that was required for the trip.  I know we have some more coming up and I think it's a great opportunity to experience different parts of Argentina.

Until next time...

-Tim