This week I’m trying something new. I’m doing photo-blog posts on our time in Argentina. Today is Week 2: Gauchos and The Pampas. I hope you enjoy!
San Antonio de Areco is a small town just an hour and a half outside Buenos Aires. We’d heard about the annual festival celebrating Gauchos and the gaucho culture (Dia de la Tradicion) and so, we headed out to investigate. Coming from the bus station we literally walked into a parade of gauchos on horseback on their way to the town fair grounds. We followed – on foot.
These young gauchos looked so dapper, but I was most impressed with the gauchas in long skirts.
I’ve got a short video of the actual horse-wrangling here (coming soon) and if you’re interested, the Frugal Traveler has a write-up of his experience at the festival here.
Next stop, MotorHomeTime.com and a campervan for the start of the Great Argentinian Road Trip.
This photo does not do justice to the vast, endless expanse of the Argentinian Pampas (our decent camera was stolen in Santiago, after all). We drove and drove and drove seeing nothing but grass, cows and the odd gaucho. It took three days before…
… the Andes came into view.
And then this killer view of San Carlos de Bariloche making the marathon drive seem worthwhile.
We made our campsite – at Lago Mascardi outside Bariloche – just in time for a lake-cooled beer for the driver.
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Information on traveling to Argentina with kids.
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Amazing photos! That must be one strange drive, to go from seeing vast openness and then the Andes. I’ve heard that West Texas also seems endless, but we haven’t been out that way just yet.
Michelle,
Great post! I hope you’ll consider writing a guest post on your mini Gaucho experience for my Writinghorseback blog.
Bueno!
I just stumbled upon your blog and I’m loving reading about your travels. What an amazing experience for your children. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more.