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Published: January 16th 2008
Today (Wednesday) was the trip to the pampas and started early with a small bus arriving on cue at the hotel. Then followed a shuttle run of a few hotels/hostels picking up several Colombians, 3 Aussies, a Canadian and 3 other Brits. A mixed bunch of course and the Colombians were very friendly and could speak as much english as we could speak spanish. This would prove useful later on.
Arriving at the ranch, about an hour´s drive Northwest of Buenos Aries, we were greeted by a friendly bunch of Goucha? and Goucheses? with wine and typical nibbles (pasties) and shown to a small museum showing the Goucho life style of the 30´s. Not much has changed I guess out here in the pampas! Nevertheless it was interesting and it served to put off the time for the horse rides that were to be the event of the morning. You can see that Gordon soon mastered the nags (they seemed to know where they were going) and that was just as well. Reversing and steering off course traverses were the order of the day - the nags obviously don´t understand the Dorset dialect! (Lindsay decided to take the photos -
A close up!
To prove it is not a body double? and it´s the first time I have ever been on a horse - and the last!wisely!)
After that it was time to get the legs back into the straight position, and lunch of course was a ´pampas´ BBQ. A grilled extravaganza, not recommended for veggies - or those with a less than perfect set of teeth and strong jawbone. G explored the cooking method to validate the EU health and safety rules as well as the health hygene, and came to the conclusion that providing someone else incinerated the food that was OK. Not that the food was bad, indeed after wine and beer it seemed pretty good.
After lunch it was the Goucho´s turn to perform their party pieces of controlling the horses that G had failed to do so and then gallop at a finger ring suspended from a pole and spear it with a small rod. They were about 75% accurate apart from an old Groucho (sic) who missed every time and finally trotted up to the ring, stopped the horse and speared the ring at point blank range. That got the biggest applause too.
At the end of the show it was back to the bus, and our Colombians, who were the worse for wear from the liquid
The Ranch
A quick shot of the Museum lunch wanted to sing patriotic songs and get every one to join in! That´s where the language divide came in handy, so we could sleep the lunch off.
So that was our day. After this blog update, it´s off to our Tango show and tomorrow we leave BA for Bariloche in South West Argentina.
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Laura Ramsey
non-member comment
Goucho Museum
You must have stayed in the same town as we did! That museum was closed when we went to it! x