23/04/07

---

Our taxi picked us up at 9 o´clock and drove us for an hour to a ranch in th mountains where we were going to be "Gaucho´s" (Argentinian cowboys) for the day. When we arrived we met a a girl called Sam who had been staying at the ranch for 3 months and was helping with the tours, we had breakfast and were joined by a Swedish girl called something beginning with M, who had lived in Dublin for 2 years and spoke with a thick Irish accent, and another guy called John Paul who was Belgium and about 60. They had both only came to the ranch for a day riding like we were doing, but ended up staying for a couple of weeks because they loved it so much!

Anna and I were the only people ridind today, so we saddled up with our real life Gaucho man and Sam and the 4 of us were on our way. Sam translated for the Gaucho who was telling us all about what a real Gaucho is, and about a national sport they play which is exactly the same as polo, but the use a live duck instead of a ball. I laughed outloud and said how fantastic that sounded only to see Anna in a state of shock, and telling the poor gut how terrible it was until he admited they didn´t use live ducks anymore, only plastic ones, which doesn´t sound even nearly as fun to me.

As the Sam and the Gaucho clearly had no training experience, we were asking questions about how to steer and stay on when it goes faster. They both said how easy it all was, and that there´s no way on earth you could ever fall off, so just enjoy it. What seemed like only a few minutes later, they suggested we tried trotting down a flat straight track we were on, we both said yeah why not, only to see Anna slip from her saddle and fall off. Fortunately she was OK, but was understandebly shaken, and to her credit she was straight back on, and within an hour we were all galloping, which was incredible.

We rode for about 4 hours and got back to the ranch for drinks and food. We sat at a table with the family and the guests of the ranch and went through steak after steak, and bottle of wine after bottle of wine. Enrique was the guy who owned the ranch, and was asking me what ancestory I had, so when I said I had some Polish in me somewhere down the line, he kept announcing "more wine for the pole" and egged me on to live up to my Polish reputation. Anna couldn´t say no to the meat, and had her plate constantly filled with more and more lavish prime cuts of beef. We sat there for 2 and a half hours eating and drinking having such a great laugh that we didn´t realise quite how drunk we were, and it was only 4 o´clock.

What a day...

---