El Campo

In November of '07 we were invited to a friends small ranch somewhere in the countryside. It was a gorgeous five, count em, 5 hour ride, at times we drove an hour between any road or driveway break at all.


We had a couple of great days riding and relaxing. There was a caretaker couple that cooked and kept the place up.


As cows are too big to be butchered often, we ate only lamb, sheep really, in everything. I don't really like lamb, but it was the only the only meat on the menu and there was no snacking. Like camp, the only food was at mealtime. So everybody built up quite an appetite. A very old refrigerator was able to keep butter and milk cool enough not to spoil, but everything else was farm to table. It was great. We made an asado with a kind of screen lean-to, gaucho style. It was simple and natural.



The best was the riding. It was new for our kids to ride wherever they pleased 'out on the range', but our friends were really familiar with the land. Their oldest son Pedro was a natural on a horse.
The horses were gentle for the most part. No one had put the one stallion in the pen, before the girls mounted up to ride and there was an incident. Janine's horse became the object of affection and there was a ruckus. I wasn't there, but Jani said she jumped from her horse to get out of the way, injuring herself a bit on the fence. That was all for her.
The men had better luck. I'm not any great rider, but was galloping like a cowboy. We went for hours, running when we wanted, passing through fields and fields. Lots of cattle, some windmills. It was amazing.
I snapped a few pictures. I can be conflicted about taking pictures. It's nice to have the image/ memories and of course handy when trying to share the experience, but stopping to capture an experience interupts it and sometimes spoils it.
It's a conundrum, no?
I hope we get the chance to go again sometime.





























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