Up at 7:45am & ready to roll at 9:30am after the lovely buffet. I noticed the Argentine flag in the front of the bus & since I haven't shown it before, I thought it would be a nice way to start! It's a lovely flag & very unusual, huh? The 2 bands of blue sky are opening up to disclose a white cloud & the sun represents the Inca Sun god - Inti.
Martha spent our bus riding time filling us in on the Bariloche & Argentine history. She's quite entertaining! Unfortunately, it is hard to remember all that history!
We made a short stop to honor a local folk saint, Gauchita Gil. Both Maria & Martha shared the long tale of how he was known as a healer & when picked up erroneously & executed, he healed the executioner's son. We performed a small ceremony to honor him by an offering of beer. We did about the same thing on the Chilean Patagonia trip. Never hurts! The shrine is on a lovely hill over looking the lake. We saw vultures & both types of Cara Cara overhead.
I lost track of our exact location, but we followed Route 40 (the longest route in Argentina - stretches N/S for 3100 miles!) a little south & the turned off of to the east to the La Fragua estancia de San Ramon. The majority of the road was dirt/gravel. It was grated, but very dusty. George & I would have definitely been unhappy on it in the RV! The scenery was beautiful - reminded us of Southern Utah. There was one stretch of about 8 miles that was paved, but that disappeared quickly. Drove for about 45 minutes. Saw Condors in the distance. Martha pointed out several of their cave nests & the poop that proved it's existence! The ranch looked well maintained as we approached.
Martin met us as we entered the reception room. He gave us a very interesting talk about how to drink Mate (pronounced MA te), the Argentinian tea that is really a social experience! Usually one person prepares the Mate & invites others to imbibe with them. He carefully measured out the leaves/stems & twigs into the cup (it's typically carved from wood & then decorated on the outside with metal, porcelain, or painted). I'd like to become a mate drinker just so I'd have an excuse to buy one of the really cool cups. You see folks on the street with them everywhere. There are free vending machines everywhere that dispense hot water for folks to refresh them. You must also have the special straw that acts as a strainer to keep you from sucking up the herbal mixture & only the liquid. He said you were never ever EVER supposed to stir the concoction. You only fill the cup with about a third of the herbs as they expand when they get wet, then cover them with hot water. The water should be hot enough to bring out the flavor of the stems/leaves, but not hot enough to burn your mouth. They actually have special water peculators that have a "mate" setting. The Mate cup is usually shared among 3 or 4 people, all drinking from the same straw & all are supposed to drink all the liquid in the cup with an ending slurping sound. Hot water is refilled between each person & it is passed back to the original person that prepared it. We saw individuals carrying the cups & drinking throughout the day everywhere on the streets, in cars, & on all public transportation. He compared the tea itself to Green tea (it does have caffeine), but the process of sharing it, is what makes it special.
I tried it, but it was too hot for me to drink all of the liquid, so I didn't get to slurp! I supposed I failed the trial.
Martin continued talking to us while another young man came in working on our lunch. It was interesting watching him, while Martin spoke & shared the Mate. He gave us a lot of details about the ranch. The ranch is 70,000
acres, all fenced (one of the first fenced ranches in Argentina) & owned by
a Swiss family that come twice a year during shearing season. It is a working ranch with 1000 head of
cattle (beef) & 8-10 thousand sheep.
Not full capacity. Used to be
larger, but the volcano in 2011 killed a lot of sheep & they had over a
foot of ash to deal with & they have never fully recovered. The owner did not really want to use tourism
to help, but was convinced that was the only way. The shearing done by hired professionals that
travel throughout Argentina & just do the shearing, vaccinations & dipping, etc. He said it takes them about a week to do all the sheep on the ranch.
Martin also talked about the "employees of the ranch." He has worked there for 5 years, but lives in Bariloche with his school aged son. He learned English in LA when his parents moved there for a couple of years where he went to 1st & 2nd grade. He said it was horrifying because he was sent to public school not speaking a word of English & the Argentine Spanish that he spoke was not the "spanish" that the others spoke in school. He had to learn quickly or be ostracized! He certainly speaks good English now! Now would probably be a good time to mention that not a lot of folks speak English here. Surprising! But not even the young people. Luckily we had our guide & I do have a tiny bit of Spanish.
Then on to the most exciting part of the day!! Horse back riding through the ranch! My horse was Mariposa & she was quite wonderful. Mostly just followed along, but occasionally she would decide that she wanted to be on her own, so I got to exercise a little use of the controls! When I remembered how to touch her neck with the bridle, she would respond & get back in line! It was exciting.
George even agreed to go although this would be his very first time on a horse. The other times it was offered, he had opted out. They had asked if anyone had never ridden & there were about 3 people, so they pulled them aside. He was given a beautiful horse & he said later he really enjoyed it! Yea! He had to exercise some control also & said he was amazed at how they responded. I didn't ever ask, but I assume these horses were only used for the tourism portion of the ranch & were not regular working horses.
We headed out sort of in single file. We had all pretty much let the horses decide where they wanted to fit in!
Our guide, Maria, was treated like one of the guides & floated up around & through the line. She even galloped by one time. She told us later that she grew up riding horses & really loved it. You could tell by watching her that she was very comfortable sitting the horse.
We rode for about an hour. We were not following any discernible path, although when we forded the streams, there had obviously been crossings there before us. There were 2 gauchos working with us. One led the way & the other floated up & down the line, keeping us moving at a steady pace. The scenery was spectacular & as time passed, we were all settling in enough to really look around. One thing I want to mention from Martin's talk. What he said that I thought was funny was about the gauchos. He said there were several employed on the ranch & they lived there full time. Most had no families & chose a solitary life & worked until they died. When one of the women asked if it was considered a "romantic" job, he laughed & said "absolutely not, you'd probably not enjoy talking to them, even if they chose to speak to you!"
Time went by pretty quickly, but I was ready to get off Mariposa. The stirrups had forced my knees to stay bent most of the time, except when I pushed up to stretch them out. She was a good horse & this will be one of the highlight experiences of the trip I am sure!
I've included this short video George took of my dismount! The guy helping me pretty much pulled me off! It was a very quick up & over!
While we were riding, some of the other staff finished up our Asado - basically a grilled meat meal. We did have both coleslaw & a lettace/tomato salad and some sliced baked potatoes, but the focus of the meal was sausage, beef, & lamb. All fresh & all totally delicious. We were all starved after the "hard work" of riding the horses! Ha!
Most exciting for us was when they invited one of the gauchos in to play accordion for us as after dinner entertainment! He was surprisingly good. First he played an Argentine folk song & we all clapped along. Then he played La Cumpersita and George & I danced tango!!!!! Yippee! It was awesome! Maria got a picture for us. Sure made our day. And you should have seen the gaucho's face! I don't think anyone had ever danced to his playing before - at least not tourist. He looked thrilled ---- as were we!
After another short drive back towards Bariloche, we picked up our guide for the Limay River (pronounced la Mi) float trip!
We joined up with Lisa's group & they took off first.
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| Home of the Rappanui Chocolate Shop in Bariloche |
It was only an hour float trip (9km). Guide said the water was high & fast now (end of winter snow melt & spring rains still contributing). They do the same trip all summer, but in a couple of weeks, it will start to take an hour and a half for the same distance due to the water level. There were a couple of times when it looked like very very mild white water - he called it Level 1.2!
Maria offered us the opportunity to dangle our bare feet in the water of the Limay. Only Maria, Sandi & I took her up on it. Sandi & Maria were first & Sandi even convinced me that it was not cold. Duh? But it was still fun & I'm happy I did it - getting me physicked to do the Polar Plunge!!
Then Maria pulled our some Rappanui chocolates & some Rose Hip Liquor. Yes, we all wriggled our hips when she said it was Rose Hip! She said whomever finished up the last drop in the bottle would get married before the end of the year! Humm???? No one was anxious to take her up on that, so she finished it up herself!
George & I did a private toast to our 30 year anniversary that is fast approaching!
We shouted to the other boat & got them to pose with happy faces. They took one of us too, but haven't gotten it yet.
The boats pulled out of the water at this lovely camp where they had prepared heavy hors d'oeuvres, a mix of sweet & salty - 2 types of quiche, empanadas, bread, & dolche de leche dipping sauce! Whew, what a perfect afternoon!!
The drive back to our hotel was easy, we just had to fight falling asleep! Since this was our last night on the pre-trip, Maria had us drop our day packs & run to meet her at the bar for anther toast to the successful pretrip! Our bartender happily filled our orders & we chatted for a bit about how we had enjoyed everything & had gotten so very lucky on the weather! It could not have been any better!
We all separated early (about 9pm) & headed to our rooms to prepare for our return to Buenos Aires & to meet the rest of the group for our main trip to Antarctica! As we sat in our beautiful room & relaxed with our view, George noticed a visitation of several types of geese down below. Perfect ending for this visit! It has been soooooo much fun & now we get to start the main focus of the trip tomorrow! See ya then!
What an adventure. Don't know when you find the time to write, Pam.
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