A Day on the Ranch

There is quite a cowboy/ranch culture here in southern Chile and Argentina. The gauchos, or cowboys, are herdsman with large ranches (estancias) on the extensive pampas;  expansive treeless plains away from the Andes. 

The one we visited yesterday raised sheep. We had a very interesting day learning about their lifestyle.  We got there mid-morning and some of the group chose to ride horses.
We did the walking tour of the ranch, before we sat down to our roast lamb lunch. The racks of lamb had been cooking over the fire right in the dining room since early morning.
The señora served us huge platters of tender flavor-filled roasted lamb. We also had salad and potatoes, all served with pebre, a salsa kind of like pico de gallo, but spicier. They eat it on everything. It really was very good with the lamb. 
After that feast we went to the barn and they demonstrated how their sheep dogs work the herds of sheep. We got some great videos, but I don't think I can post them here. 
They also sheared a sheep for us. It only took a few minutes. We saw stacks of bundled wool in the barn, but the gaucho told us they have been storing it for three years without selling it. There is not enough demand worldwide to get a decent price for it. That made me sad.
Another tourist from Australia piped up with the encouraging words that they had stored wool from their sheep for 30 years and never recovered. I don't know anything about the market for wool, but how will a sheep estancia survive without selling wool? Yes, they also sell the sheep for meat, but still..

After that, the gaucho showed us how they train their horses to compete in rodeos. Again our videos show it much better, but you can see the traditional rodeo garb; the poncho and traditional hat.
We finished the afternoon off with fresh warm sopaipillas, the best I've had, served with jam or pebre.
It felt like the day had taken us back in time. Like we were seeing the ancient Chile, rather than the modern.

When I asked the gauchos if I could take their picture they agreed..if the señora would join them. Ha. Me and my guapo gauchos.😊






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Exploring Valpo, "The Jewel of the Pacific"

Valparaiso was an important seaport in the late 19th century when Europeans were rushing to San Francisco for gold. Ships sailed around the Straight  of Magellan and restocked in Valpo. Everything changed with the construction of the Panama Canal. But the city is still an important port. We saw lots of shipping containers on our boat ride this afternoon. Valpo is home base for the Chilean Navy. It was fun to see the city from the sea on our short ride. We did a three- hour walking tour today. The city was a magnet for immigrants in the late 1800s and you can see the European influence in architecture,  food, customs, and neighborhoods.  Valparaiso boasts 4 universities, the oldest Spanish newspaper (El Mercurio) and Chile's first public library. Our tour included riding several funiculars (asensor in Spanish). We also walked a lot of stairs. At the top, the views are always amazing. Everywhere there is art. Some is "teen-age graffiti " Sebatian said. But a lot of it is cr...
Read more

Valparaiso

Image
Yesterday was a travel day. I've been amazed at how well the connections have worked. Mauricio took us to the airport in Punta Arenas after breakfast. We flew the 3.5 hours to Santiago. At the airport we figured out how to get a bus into the city to get a different bus to Valpo, our colorful city by the sea. We paid our fare and, with 5 minutes to spare, boarded the fancy bus to Valpo. Two hours later we were here and by 6:30 pm we were ringing the door bell of our B&B, Casa California, in the Cerro Alegre area of the city. We met Jonny, our host who is from California, and his wife Cata (Chilean)  and sweet baby Max. We were very hungry by then. Jonny recommended a place with a view up the hill. The city is built on very steep hills. Everywhere we walk uphill or put on the brakes going downhill. Houses and restaurants appear to built on top of each other with every inch occupied. There are hidden little patios and gardens beh...
Read more

The Language

Image
We thought our diligence with Duolingo Spanish the past 6 months would pay off, but that controlled app environment has not translated into speaking Spanish naturally in Chile! Or maybe it's the Swahili that rushes to our tongues whenever we try to speak anything other than English. We are usually speaking Swa-ish or Span-hili sentences and looking at each to figure out which part is which. It's frustrating, and also laughable. But thank goodness we can understand more Spanish than we can produce, so we get along ok. But there is not much English spoken in Chile. I read that Chile uses the least English of any South American country. Mmmm, our next trips should be easier.😉 On our tours in the desert we mostly couldn't communicate with the others because of language differences.  But we found when we offered our halting Spanish to try and find out about them, the ice broke and they were happy to talk and were very patient. Those who spoke Portuguese, German or Chinese usual...
Read more