Mel´s not grouch-o when she´s hanging with gauchos

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  Entre Rios, Argentina
Saturday, October 18, 2008

I apologize that I´ve been away from my travel blog.  It´s been quite some time, and I have SO much to write.  School´s going well.  This coming week we have our midterm exams, and so I have lots to study up on!  This entry, in the interest of saving time (mine AND yours) will focus on one event only-- the Gaucho Party.

As I´ve said before, this organization (AHA) through which I´m studying sets up different excursions for us so that we become truly immersed in the culture here-- all of it-- and our experience is ultimately enriching.

Last Tuesday (the 7th) was a holiday for all of Rosario.  It was supposedly some Day of the Virgin.   Supposedly many cities were named after all these famous virgins (Rosario, for example, is the name of one), and so they celebrated it.  There were no classes, banks were closed, and everyone took the day off.  The American students traveled to the province of Entre Rios (a bit north of the Santa Fe province, where Rosario is located).  We took a big double-decker bus to the tiny ranch of El Cerrito (the little pig), in the absolute middle of nowhere.  We left about 10:00 AM, arrived at the ranch at about 1:00 PM.  The bus dropped us off at the rusty old gate to the ranch, and all the students piled out of the bus, through the gate, met the head gaucho, and into our little ´heaven¨ for the day.  For the first 45 minutes or so, we sprawled out our bags, jackets, blankets, whatever we had, and just basked in the warmth of the BEAUTIFUL spring sun and the glorious fresh air.  The cooks came around with baskets of empanadas for us as appetizers--- FABULOUS empanadas, I might add.  There were about 8 horses grazing around in the pasture, and 4 of them were soon saddled up by the cowboys and ready for us to ride as we please.

I was the first to saddle up and test out my (somewhat rusty) riding skills.  But I was one of the only ones who actually knew how to ride, and soon others followed suit and mounted the other horses.  We rode for about an hour, taking turns (as there were 10 of us to each horse) and then had to go in and eat.  Various tables were set up in this little lean-to, and we all sat down.  Like a true Argentine meal, we were first served with big carafes of water and about 3 bottles of red wine per table.  And a bottle of 7-Up for each guest.  Our first course was a giant sausage and then came big racks of meat for each person.  In addition, we were given corn, potato salad, and spinach salad (which is still, according to Argentina, not spinach.  Agree to disagree.).  Above all, we were given BREAD.  Baskets and baskets of bread, and we ate and ate until we were full.  And then we ate some more.  Stuffed, quenched, and a bit tipsy (wine disappears pretty quickly sometimes in the South here), we all sauntered out of our little snack shack and out into the sunshine again.

We gathered around the front of the house and watched a group of gauchos and their ladies dance.  Surprisingly, it wasn't merengue, flamenco, or salsa.  More like polka dancing with handkerchiefs being flailed about.  It was interesting.  The show didn't last long, though, and we were off to our free time again.

Some continued to ride the horses.  Others grabbed a soccer ball and commenced a game of futbol, Argentina-style.  I had my playing cards with me.  Some of us played go-fish, all in Spanish, of course.  A couple guys had brought their guitars.  They sat under the trees and fiddled with their guitars while some sang.  It was, all in all, an absolutely perfect day.  Some others just wandered out of the yard, through the gate, and down the dusty dirt road (leading to NOWHERE, I might add) to just enjoy the sunshine and fresh air.  Still others grabbed some old broken-down bikes leaning against a tree and took them for a spin around the pastures or down the dirt road.

My friend Lily here doesn't actually know how to ride a bike.  She lives in Oregon, but was born in Peru and lived there until she was 10.  She blames her lack of bike knowledge on Peru.  Apparently no one in Peru had bikes, and so she never learned.  By the time she reached the US, everyone her age already knew how to ride bikes.  She just never learned.  We attempted to teach her.  It did not go well.  Does anyone know, by the way, if there's an age cutoff for learning to ride bikes?  Like I know, for example, you can't perfectly learn a certain language if you begin to learn it after a certain age because the muscles in your mouth won't function properly enough for your mouth to pronounce the words flawlessly.  Is it the same for bikes?  Maybe Lily will just never be able to ride a bike... poor girl.  Anyway, she couldn't learn.  It was funny.  And sad.  But mostly funny.

And then Lily decided to take a break.  Sammie, Maarja, and I took 3 bikes out to the open road (the open DIRT road) to test out our pedaling legs.  My bike seemed to be in the best condition, as Maarja's pedals were broken (yet still functional)  and Sammie's bike seemed to suffer from the same affliction.  We went out to the dirt road and began to pedal.  There seemed to be a slight grade in front of us, slightly downhill but nothing we couldn't handle.  It looked fairly simple. Fairly simple, that is, if you have brakes on your bike.  The hill turned out to be MUCH steeper than we'd observed it to be.  Sammie commented, as my bike flew past her, that I seemed to be in a bit of a hurry to get down the hill.  I screamed back to her that there were no brakes on my bike and that she needed to help me.  She and Maarja couldn't even catch up to my possessed bicycle  as I sped down the death-hill, on my way to a surely painful end.  I had to have been going 20 mph as I watched the fields fly by me.  There was no end in sight-- my only way out was to crash.  So I crashed.  But, in any case, I stopped.  And 3 minutes later, Sammie and Maarja caught up to me.  And took pictures of my crash.  And I cut my shoulder.

But don't worry, all.  I'm okay.  and I'll probably survive the remainder of my time here. 

It was so refreshing to be out there.  We were absolutely in the middle of nowhere, not even another ranch in sight for miles.  The air was fresh and smelled fabulous, and the food was great.  The gauchos were nice, and the horses were FUN!  We all felt like we were about 9 years old, and it was fun to just run around and be a kid again.  I was talking to my friend Brett here about the day we had.  He said he just sort of "left" the fiesta-- just walked away from everyone playing soccer, playing guitar, playing cards, playing anything, and just walked down the endless dirt road outside the ranch.  He went out by a field and just looked around for about 30 minutes.  He said it was refreshing to look straight ahead and see the sun.  He made the comment that here, in the city of Rosario, we have to look straight up so see any kind of sun at any given time.  It's true.  There's so many big buildings here (amazing architecture, yes, but a little out of the norm for Oregonians and Michiganians) and we're just surrounded by cement and shadows all day long.  It was nice to get back to nature.  Thank you for your input, Brett.

Argentina's a big country, you know.  But what's cool about the city I'm in is that it's right in the center of the country (well, just about), and you can travel to any corner of the country relatively easy.  For example, I can go to Buenos Aires (the biggest city I've ever been to, probably) in just 4 hours.  I can to go the center of a really artsy city (like Rosario) in 12 minutes.  I can go to the middle of nowhere in the province of Entre Rios in just a few hours.  I can go to Iguazu Falls (more about that in the next entry) in very tropical Argentina by taking a bus.  I can go to the southernmost city in the world (Ushuaia, on the southern tip of South America) relatively easy.  I can go to the mountains in wine country (Mendoza, near Chile) by taking a bus.  I can go to Salta (very desert-y, up by Bolivia) by taking a bus.  Argentina is fabulous, and has so much to offer.  For anyone traveling to South America, I tell you-- GO TO ARGENTINA.  You won't be let down.

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