Dia de Campo

Saturday, April 14^th, 2012

As part of my program, we took an excursion to a “traditional” gaucho ranch out in the BA province called La Mimosa. It was a short trip from the city, just a 60-90 minute excursion. We were greeted by peacocks (which never once opened up and flaunted their feathery tails in full) as well as gauchos handing out delicious orange juice and empanadas. Not long after our arrival, we got to see the traditional style of dance (not tango). It reminded me in some ways of Basque dancing, but even more playful. (Yo, Lasso, I was thinking of you…).

After that we were free to ride the horses (if we knew how, that is…) and because I haven’t ridden a horse since 1994, I opted for the short horse-drawn cart ride through the campo. Afterwards, Angela and I took a small photo excursion because the entire property was filled with luscious plants and flowers, even this late in the year. It still felt like summer was in full bloom and had there not been tens of students in every corner, I would have felt a lot more tranquil—but even still, I felt like I was in paradise.

Then it was time for lunch—a traditional asado. I’m never opposed to eating meat from an asado, but unfortunately this asado only had chorizo, bolsillo (blood sausage) and some kind of roast beef that was very fatty. There was also chicken, but this too was very greasy and the bones and skin seemed to outweigh the actual meat. At least on my piece of chicken, anyway. But the salad, empanadas and bread were delicious, so I wasn’t about to complain. Plus I had a fair amount of OJ…the OJ in the country is magical…

Fat and happy, we were then treated to ice cream (seriously, I’m going to explode!) while we watched more traditional dancing. Eventually they put on “regular” dancing music and hoped that the students would take to the floor. Nobody did until a few brave souls showed their dance moves and little by little, more students trickled into the crowd.

We were a little sweaty, but even that wasn’t the finale. Further yet, we had a demonstration of a classic game brought by the Spaniards (because before Europe’s fateful arrival, there weren’t any horses here…). The key is to get a pencil sized stick through a ring hanging down from a pole. While you’re riding a horse at full speed. Sound impossible? It almost is…There were 4 competitors and of course the first one to do it was the 11 year old! Wow! The tradition is that once a gaucho gets the ring, he gives it to a lovely lady in the audience in exchange for a kiss. That’s one lucky pre-pubescent gaucho!

After the game was over, we still had a little bit of free time to amble about the property where I met a cute little sheep that would follow me to and fro from his cage. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that animals are still very perceptive until you have a humanly encounter with them. And as I played around in the crowds of chickens, peacocks and dogs that were running all over the place, I thought, hmm…maybe this is the life…

But before I could really say for sure, we loaded back up on the bus back to the city, away from this beautiful and tranquil place back to the traffic jam that is Buenos Aires.