Gauchos, fiestas and an Expedition Cut Short (A Blog for Pip)

Every morning I awake and say to myself that tommorrow I will leave Salta and continue my journey Southward.. And each morning I awake to find that the day has something new and random to offer... I have visions of myself waking up one morning to find myself fifty years old and thinking, today I will continue my journey southward...

Photos for Pip!
I decided it was easier to post them here than to email you them - Have fun in Bolivia Pip!!!

What a past couple of days..
Friday was the aniversary of the death of Martin Miguel Guemes - the last Gaucho hero.
The Gauchos are a type of Argentine Cowboy and traditional defenders of the northern regions.. Exactly what Guemes was a hero for is a little unclear to me, but by one account he was the last Gaucho to have pushed back and won a major victory against the Spanish.
Gauchos ride in on horseback from all around the countryside so as to make camp around the monument and form a gathering in celebration of their hero... We´re talking thousands of Gauchos..
These guys are the real deal. Working the land, ranch-handing and riding from the age of three.
The monument to Guemes and the entire surrounding park is reserved for these pilgrims on this day, and dozens of camps are formed with dozens of Gauchos sitting around the campfires in chaps and traditional gear, horses tied to the trees and troughs set out - playing spanish guitar and singing long into the night, while drinking to their fallen hero.

My grandfather would absolutely love the cowboy culture here - it is very different in subtle ways from western cowboy culture and yet identical in principle. Here it is real in every way, as opposed to the "cowboys" of Alberta I´d run into during my three years in the Prarries - mostly guys who wear the hats and the boots without actually understanding what it means to live the cowboy way.
My grandfather is of those whom would know what it truly means to take pride in such a lifestyle, having grown up in the old way in Saskatchewan and been around and owned horses his entire life.
It is my great privledge to have been exposed to this historical Gaucho gathering, taking it all in with great detail so that I may sit with him on his own ranch upon my return and describe the experience.. I look forward to it.


We sent Tamara off with a flourish of fiesta Friday night (again, all of us staying up until her bus at 7:15am). The night was spent dancing at a local Discoteca and then all of us wandering back to the bunkhouse for an hour or two before her departure with Mark.
Once I discovered I had my camera on me from earlier in the day it soon became the center of attention on our walk to the famed Zona Balcarce (a local area of town littered with bar after bar after discoteca after pub after club), and it was passed around during the journey. The cool looking photos with blurred backgrounds were taken by Mark, a professional photographer from Holland, now living in Buenos Aires.. It was a fun night, to be sure.

Tamara, I´ll email you the photo of you and mark that Julio took.. hahaha.. I won´t post it here like I said I would! I´d like to keep my Travelblog account! ;-).

Ignasio picked me up at 8am for what was to be our three day cruise over the mountains toward the Chilean border to a Salar south-west of here.. It was myself, Ignasio and his good friend and fly-fishing guide Sebastian.
It was an amazing day, even if I was still half-drunk when he picked me up and progressed into the fun fun state of hung-overness as we cruised on over the mountains.
My luck with vehicles is always the same when it comes to road-trips (though it was usually only ever in my own truck)... Toward mid-afternoon the Land Rover broke down and we found ourselves being rope-towed into a quiet little dusty town straight out of the Old West, on the Chilean Border, called San Antonio Del Los Cobres.
We stayed the night and made it back to Salta via bus.. :-) Regardless of the bad luck it was a fun day´s adventure in the least!.

Joseph N Sieben

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