Dia del campo!

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On Friday, the last day of orientation, we got to go on a field trip to the campo (countryside) to an estancia (ranch). It was a really tourist place, unfortunately I forget the name and the exact location, but we took a bus from UCA an hour and a half outside the main city. Tourists can either make a day trip to the estancia, or they can rent rooms and stay for a little while in the country. We had the day trip plan, as did a few other touristy groups, which meant a snack, time to wander around the farm, a lunch, and a horse show. Only two others from the gw group went because you had to pay 100 pesos, but it was worth it to check off another attraction in argentina. Also we ended up being the only Americans.

I would compare the estancia experience to a sort of drumlin farm experience, what with the traditionally dressed guachos and the animals and traditional food.

Highlights of the dia del campo trip...horseback riding! I think I may have ridden a pony once when I was little, but I can't recall actually riding horses ever. I also tend to think of the whole idea as a bit strange, but perhaps that's because I am never around horses. Anyways, the horses at the estancia are pretty much trained to walk around the farm in a big circle, which they do multiple times a day, so there wasn't much danger involved. I was nervous but all in all the ride was short and I made it out alive. I have a few pictures to prove that I did ride horseback.

After all the animal fun we went to eat lunch, which was an asado. Dia del campo happened to fall on the first Friday of Lent, which means no meat for Catholics. I knew there was going to be an asado but I didn't want to miss all the fun in the campo so I signed up for the vegetarian option-which turned out to be spaghetti with meat sauce. So the food for me wasn't too memorable but there was a show while we ate. We watched traditional Argentine dances from different parts of the country and listened to traditional music. I took a few videos of the dancing to demonstrate (though I can't remember the names of all of them and the quality of the videos is pretty bad) if they load you will see them on here somewhere...

Lunch was followed by a horse show. We watched horsebackriders race each other and do some tricks etc. and then we took the bus back to UCA. End of orientation!

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Photos

host, dressed in traditional gaucho garb
we all thought the kid on the horse looked american, turns out he was ukranian

Comments

[Christine]

Hey!
Wow! Your with Marissa? I think that is the girl in one of your pictures... she was in WLP. I love horses! Good for you finally getting the chance to ride them.