Day at the Gaucho Ranch, Yee Ha

Today we booked an excursion called ‘Gaucho life on the Pampas’, it was a trip to a beautiful country estate and old ranch in the countryside. The ranch is owned by a family of Gauchos (Argentinian Cowboys), one of them is quite famous and has been in lots of newspapers, he’s also famous for kissing all the ladies that come into his ranch! As we arrived he welcomed us off the coach and kissed us all, then showed us over to a seated area in front of a field of horses. They demonstrated their skills on the horses and did an amazing trick where they gallop towards a post and pick up a ring in front of them with their pen while travelling really fast.

After the performance we were allowed to look around the estate and were given some home baked pasties to try. We were then shown over to the stables and queued up to ride the horses. Paul was first in line and was saddled up onto a large dark brown horse, Chalkie and Emma followed with similar horses. Then it was my turn and they brought out a white horse covered in light brown freckles which was very fitting as she was just like me :). I named her Freckles even though she was probably a boy!!

There were about 30 of us all on horses and we went out into the field for a leisurely walk. The horses were very well behaved and followed each other round. I started off at the front but Freckles was a little on the slow side so I ended up at the very back of the pack but I didn’t mind as I got to stay on her for longer!

After the horse riding we went through to the restaurant where they had prepared a traditional Argentinian BBQ. The beer and wine was included and went down well on our table, I had a headache so didn’t have much but the others were very jolly :). We ate sausages, steaks and chicken, all we’re really good but we ate far too much. This was followed by some live music, Tango dancing and a guy dancing really fast with ropes that sounded like drums as they hit the ground! At 3.30pm we got back on the coach and all fell asleep!