abril en buenos aires

All Things Gaucho

This weekend was a gaucho (the Argentine version of a cowboy) themed weekend with a little beach thrown in, and since I am 3/4 country girl and 1/3 beach bum, I was quite content. Friday we headed up the river to the closest thing to a beach Buenos Aires has, even though it is considered a port town. On Saturday Emily and I went to San Antonio de Areco, which is the epicenter of gaucho lore. It is a very quaint, quiet, and picturesque town, with a charming plaza, cobbled streets, more kids on bikes than actual traffic, and a park with a swimming hole, where half the town was cooling off from the 85 degree weather. We toured an replica of an estancia, or estate, where my favorite part was the pulperia, or general store or tavern. During the 19th century, the pulperias were gathering places for gauchos to rest and tomar algo, or have a drink. However, the pulperia owners would only let gauchos the owners knew into the main part of the bar, and that theme was carried out outside with the horses, where only the horses of the gauchos that were friends of the pulperia could drink at the water trough inside the pulperia's yard, and the rest had to drink at the water trough on the other side of the fence. We also went horseback riding!Sunday we went to the Feria de Mataderos, a weekly rural-style festival in one of the barrios of BA. We got to see actual gauchos strutting their stuff: country and folkloric dances, vendors selling productos del campo, and even a gymkhana-esque game where they hang a small ring from a pole and a mounted gaucho gallops at full speed while holding a pen-like instrument and spears the ring. I was ready to try it if only they would have given me a horse!

posted by aprilmae @ 8:16 PM