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Published: October 26th 2006
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life on the ranch
On my way back from retuning one of the mares to their field. I´ve finally started my life as a cowgirl! I arrived at the Haras Monday afternoon (the date of this entry, tho I am in fact writing this somewhat later) and after a quick welcome got stuck straight into work...
The first few weeks at the ranch weren´t so great. I quickly realised I wouldn´t be learning as much as I´d hoped, both in terms of improving my Spanish (cos i mainly work with the other volunteers, who all speak English), and in terms of all the exciting horse stuff (like horse-whispering, and breeding, and competitions) that they promised me in the advert. And it was a pretty tough routine to get used to...we start work at 6.30am and finish at 7pm (with a long siesta for lunch), and we only get 2 days off every fortnight so I´m working a 60 hour week! However once I finally had my first weekend off I started to feel much happier, I´ve settled into the routine and got used to all the hard work, and now I´m really enjoying life on the ranch!
The best bits about life here are the the horses and the other volunteers - we´re one big
my home
Only about 1/3 of that is actually my home, the rest is the laundry room, but still its pretty nice. There are grapefruit trees to the left, and horses in the field behind. happy family a la little house on the prarie. And there are little perks like getting your washing done once a week, 2 hot dinners every day, and the weekly bag of fruit, bread, cornflakes and milk.
I share a room at the ranch with Anne, a newly qualified vet from France. She´s very lovely, and, tho I wasn´t looking forward to having to share, it actually works very well. Its great always having someone there to chat to, especially if we´re feeling homesick, or frustrated with life at the ranch, and we even manage to share the 10 minutes of hot water our shower gets! The other volunteers consist of: Gaizkane, Spanish, has been here for 6 months already and now works as a horse trainer with Luiz, from Brazil, an employee not a volunteer but he eats with us and is one of the gang. Tim is from Germany, he´s trained as a carpenter so he helps out with all the odd jobs, and has already built a massive door for the stables - we´re told it´s to separate the stallions from the mares, but suspect its really to seperate the male and female workers... there´s a long
list of rules we had to sign our agreement to including one against having ´amorous relationships´ (The other big rule is that we´re not allowed alcohol on the ranch!) Although I was valiantly flying the flag on my own when I first got here, 2 more Brits have since arrived. Dan from Claygate (20 minutes down the road from me, its an amazingly small world!) and then Caroline, who is my working buddy and spends her days looking after the mares with me. Our newest arrival has only been here a few days so is still ridiculously excited and enthusiatic about everything, tho I´m confident the early mornings and shit shovelling will soon take their effect. He´s called James and is from the Solomon Islands (between Australia and Fiji for those of you whose geography is as bad as mine).
So this is what I´ve been doing every day for the last 6 weeks (and will no doubt continue to do for the next 6 weeks as well).....
* Get up at 6am, wash, dress, breakfast and report to the office by 6.30.
* Help Anne with her morning veterinary treatments (not as exciting as it sounds, it
basically involves fetching and holding horses) then head to the stables.
* Groom the mares that are kept in overnight then take them out to their fields and muck out their boxes. (Us girls work with the mares, we´re not allowed near the stallions, who are looked after by the Argentinean stable hands, which suits me just fine cos the stallions are all a bit nuts.)
* I then have to do the ´recorrida´, traipse round the fields grooming all the horses and checking them for wounds etc. And then we bring the mares in to have their lunch in the stables cos the sun's too strong for them to be outside in the afternoon (but not too hot for us to work of course!).
* And this takes me to 11.30, and my lovely 2 1/2 hour lunch break.
* Thankfully the afternoon is slightly more relaxed, we put the mares in the walker, perhaps help Anne with some more vet stuff, give a horse a shower, help the guys with their jobs, or watch Gaizkane and Luiz training horses. And a few afternoons a week we get to ride.
* Oh and I almost forgot, throughout the day
sunrise at the ranch
...the only good thing about getting up at 5am to feed the stallions (which i have to do once a week). we are continuously sweeping and shovelling horse shit. And my hands are developing a set of lovely callouses to prove it!
* So the day finishes at 7pm with us checking in at the office again. After which dinner, or sometimes we go into town with the minibus that takes the other workers back from the ranch, for our rare moments of contact with the outside world.
* And at the end of all this I´m so knackered that bedtime is normally 9.30!
There are lots of little moments that balance out all the long hours, and stupid rules and monotony, and make me feel really lucky to be out here, like this is something quite special that most other people wouldn´t get to experience. Like the ride into town twice a week, when we´re all squeezed into this little minibus with the workers, and everyone´s laughing and joking in Spanish, and I can´t understand most of it but I´m laughing too, and everyone´s passing round the mate. And all the animals and wildlife, not just the horses, tho I love being around them every day and getting to know all their individual quirky little habits, but really
unusual creatures everywhere you go. There are flocks of green parrots, and strange squawking birds that seem perfectly cute and innocent on the ground, but start dive-bombing you if you walk too close to their nests. One of the fields has a small lake in it (where Tim and Luiz go fishing on their days off) where big groups of Carpinchos live - they´re the biggest rodents on earth, they bark like dogs, and they´re quite rare in Argentina. Oh and there are very small crocodiles in the lake too! There are Ñandu, grey fluffy birds like emus but slightly smaller, that run round the fields and lay their eggs in amongst the horses (the fools). And there are other little rabit-like rodents that have dens all round the ranch, they´re called Bizcacha (by the way I´m just guessing on the spelling of all these names, so i´m sure im getting most wrong) and Tim and the workers often go hunting them, and then fry them up for lunch. Bizcacha milonesa is actually very tasty. The weather here is very hot, and often the humidity builds up into a really big spectacular storm, the thunder is so loud and powerful
Crocodile hunter
One of the crocodiles that live in the ponds on the ranch... the guys caught it, killed it, skinned it, kept the meat as bait for fishing and stuck the head on the roof of the carniceria (butcher´s shed). it shakes right through you, and because the land is so flat you can see lightning from miles and miles away, so far that you can´t even hear the thunder sometimes. And then this torrential rain starts, and lasts for a whole day normally (not even Swansea can compete with the rain out here). The most beautiful moments tho are arriving back from town in the evening and looking up to see all the stars in a sky so dark and clear you can even see the milky way, and then looking out to the fields and seeing thousands of flashing twinkling lights, a whole city of fireflies just hovering at eye level for as far as you can see.
p.s. more photos to come soon!
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