Wednesday, June 05, 2013

How to be a cowboy in Argentina

Argentina is a very interesting country where the inflation is over 20%, random weekly protests occur on the streets, all the Asian looking people and grocers are called "Chinos", and where you would never take out a map and look at it in public. All these eccentricities were a part of why I had such an interesting time there. So much so that I even convinced my (ex-)girlfriend to heroically fly 33 hours (one way) to come and see me in Buenos Aires. Although, she almost decided to cut her loses during a 6 hour layover in Paris. She called me and told me, dejectedly, that she just couldn't bare another 13 hours in an cramped Air France seat. I, on the other hand, had just finished watching "The Hobbit" with my friends in BA and tried to cheerfully relate to her how her journey to see me was similar to the epic journey of the hobbits on their heroic adventure. Needless to say, It didn't have the intended effects as I had pictured in my mind.  But, eventually she landed, and I had to rack my brain to plan two weeks filled with attractions for us. Because, as I realized, staying in my Airbnb apt and watching YouTube wasn't going to cut it for her.

We did a lot of things like taking Tango lessons, eating steaks, seeing the Iguazu but the highlight was definitely the day that we spent learning horse riding. I scheduled us in with the ranch for Dec 21, 2012; the day that the world is supposed to end. The picture of us riding through the wilderness while the world around us crumbled was too hard to resist. But as we all know, Apocalypse never came. To which I'm thankful for, not only for my life, but also for the fact that we actually learned how to gallop by the end the day, from zero experience at the beginning. Here is a video of us - 


The guy who owned the ranch was also an inspiration. He used to work for an insurance company in Buenos Aires for 20 years until his health was failing due to workplace stress. Eventually he decided to quit the soul crushing job and bought this ranch, where now he is a happy cowboy showing the newbies how to ride horse (and making more money than before). Pretty cool right? Here are some more pictures of us - 





How To - 

Very simple. The place I went to is - http://www.caballos-alapar.com/

They come pick you up and then drop you off. So just make sure you are dressed appropriately and they will take care of the rest. 

I did a lot of other stuff in Argentina where I stayed for 1 month, so let me know if anyone has any questions on travelling there. 

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