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Published: March 21st 2007
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Estancia Santa Rita
The main house at Estancia Santa Rita Click
here for more pictures from my travels. You can also cut and paste the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060634&l=5d88f&id=200129. The beginning pics are the same, but there are new ones at the end.
Quick Summary: Week 2 is officially in the history books and what a packed week it was. Saturday of last week, Debby and I went to a free concert where more than 10,000 people showed up to listen to “easy listening” music. It was so weird how people were so excited about it! Rather than fight the crowds to go home, we went to a restaurant before the encore and got there just before it filled up. A bife de chorizo, tortilla con papas, and a bottle of Argentine Malbec (vino tinto). Just chatting and eating. It was a wonderful night. Tuesday night brought tango classes (expanded upon below). Wednesday had us salsa-ing and going to Museo Club where I met an Argentine guy I would later go on an ice cream date with (the ice cream was great; the conversation, not so much). I went there for “after work”/happy hour which lasts from 8pm until 3am. There had to be 3,000 people there. Maybe more. Friday was
Estancia Santa Rita
Back of the main house at Estancia Santa Rita wine and dinner and more wine with classmates; almost getting in a fight (kinda) for a immature, naïve 21 year old New Zealander girl who cannot speak the language and gets herself into trouble; wandering through the torrential rain with 2 guys from my hostel and Debby to Notorious (a jazz club) near my house to find that the set was over and they were closing; then ending up in a bar in Palermo where we drank some more and played Never Have I Ever. After I got over how wet my toes were, it was a really fun night. Saturday started off rough and early (not great after Friday’s long night), but ended up fabulous (expand upon below). I went to Estancia Santa Rita with women from my school. Monday I went to the horse races and bet on a couple races, but no luck came my way. My friend won a few pesos. Tuesday was an African dance class with a room full of Argentine women. No English was spoken. Fabulous!
Specifics:
Tango I am in the city of tango. There are tango shows in every neighborhood and at weekend markets, young people dance the tango
for money. It’s a beautiful dance - very sensual and physical. So, of course, I wanted to try it. I found a milonga (dance hall to practice tango) called La Catedral in one of my guidebooks offering an hour lesson before the dance hall. The guidebook said not to miss this “wild, underground tango venue” - so I wasn’t about to. The guide also said the class started at 8:30pm. A note to all those using guidebooks: call to confirm timing! An hour and a half later, we were actually dancing. But the wait allowed me time to take in the space. It’s a huge loft reminiscent of a funky artist’s loft in NYC (or what I imagine it would look like). There was urban art on the walls - paintings and sculptures - with the piece de resistance being the ginormous, anatomically correct, heart over the bar. There were other tourists there, but it was a far cry from a tourist attraction. It seems like the guy who wrote the guidebook probably knows the people who own the space and added it to help their business a bit. You get that from the outside, too. I thought this would
Estancia Santa Rita
The road to paradise be a club of some sort so you can imagine my surprise when I got to the building and it looked like a regular old building - with gated doors and no sign. We were about to walk away when we saw one word over the bell: Tango. We knew we had come to the right place.
I could understand very little of the Spanish instruction, but body language is the same around the world and it was through watching the instructors that I understood most of what I was supposed to do. Tango is a sexy dance when done well, but what I was doing was not sexy! 😊 The teacher told me I move my hips too much and called me a hoochy! Well, something like that (in Spanish) and it was in a joking manner, but still. I think I’ll stick to salsa and other dances where hip movement is a plus. A lot of dancing well has to do with the partner you get. It’s not so fun to dance with another beginner, especially when they are supposed to lead! But I was trying. I even asked someone to dance after the class (because he seemed to know what he was doing). There were some couples who obviously knew what they were doing and came to the milonga to practice their skills. Definitely a good experience to be repeated in the near future.
Estancia Santa Rita Early on Saturday morning I met up with 2 American girls from my language school to make the trek to Estancia Santa Rita, a ranch outside of BA, recommended to me by Debbie Swartz, a family friend and neighbor from Baltimore. First, there was the 1.5 hr chartered bus ride to Lobos, a lovely town of about 35,000 to the north of BsAs.
From there, we hired a remise (hired car/taxi) to drive us to the estancia. We waited for 30 min while the driver called around to see if the roads to were too muddy to drive in his little Peugot, circa 1993. Ultimately, he decided to take us and we were off. We drove through lovely neighborhoods, saw people riding bicycles, and kids actually playing on the sidewalks. In one park, there was a kid with his horse, just practicing his riding. Around the next corner were horses just chilling. No fence, no halter, hanging out on their owner’s front lawn. It was fabulous.
We turned off of the main road and it didn’t take long to realize why mud might be a problem. We were driving on a dirt road in the country in Argentina. The scenery reminded me of the flat lands of the Midwest in the States. Bright blue skies, corn fields, cows. And mud. Lots of it. Slowly but surely, we made our way. That morning, we were worried the rain would continue from Friday to Saturday and we were considering canceling the trip. When we turned into Estancia Santa Rita, we were so glad we didn’t. We were at a manor in the country in Argentina. The grounds were beautiful. We spent the day being treated like royalty. There were empanadas, then lunch, then horseback riding - but we made sure to get back to the main house for tea at 5. Lots of lounging went down.
It was so nice to get back up on a horse, though I ripped my jeans throwing my leg over the saddle. Too many empanadas, quizas? 😊 We rode through the woods to where the cows were grazing and had a chance to see recently born calfs and ponies. I kinda felt like a cowgirl. All I was missing was my hat! The saddles here are so different from American saddles. They seem to be cloth saddle pad looking things, with leather bolsters underneath and stirrups coming from the sides. I need to take a closer look to see how they go together. There’s not a lot of leather on the saddle, as there is on American saddles.
After our fabulous day wandering and lounging, it was time to go back home. The roads had dried by then and the trip back was much faster, so we had time to peek around Lobos. It looked like the kind of place you could really live and be happy in. It was a little small, but I think that really appealed to me after coming from BA. I think the next time I take months to be in another country, I will spend time in a small town, to feel like a part of the community, rather than being another tourist in the big city.
Click
here for more pictures from my travels. You can also cut and paste the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2060634&l=5d88f&id=200129. The beginning pics are the same, but there are new ones at the end.
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