by admin | Dec 11, 2019 | La Pampa
Best Argentina experience
People sharing how was their journey into the Pampas as an Argentina experience:
GlobeTrekkerRM April 23, 2019
Excellent, Authentic Gaucho Experience and Pampas experience.
My wife and I spent an excellent day in the countryside outside of Buenos Aires enjoying the Camino Pampa experience. A 1.5 hour drive brought us to a quaint and authentic town, where we met our guide, Juan Manuel Hernandez. He was really a highlight of our day – incredibly interesting and engaging, spoke perfect English, and very knowledgeable as well.
After a brief tour of the town, we took a brief drive to an absolutely beautiful estancia (ranch), where we spent the day horseback riding (optional, but easy and fun for beginners), eating incredible barbecue, and watching real working gauchos working the ranch. After a wonderful lunch, we were treated to an informal show by the gauchos that included music, dance, and a display of horseback riding skill.
Criollo horses:
One of the most amazing experience was a performance by a young and very talented gaucho who showed us how new horses are trained in their culture. If you love horses (or animals in general) this is a must-see. One of the most touching and gentle displays of love between horse and rider we’ve ever seen. In all a wonderful way to understand the very complex and sophisticated gaucho culture.
Best argentina experience
A day in the countryside where the gauchos are working every day in the Estancia
Vavistravelling August 31, 2019
A great Argentina experience!
My experience in this Pampa was absolutely great! From the start till the end everything was perfect. Our guide, Guillermo, was funny, smart, kind, and made us feel safe and welcome every moment that we spent together. I highly recommend to do this experience!
Asado beef at the Estancia
This is the way to spend some days in the Gauchos` Pampas
Experience with horses
If you would prefer more information about the Gauchos in Spanish
fabian c April 25, 2018
Great Argentina experience to learn about the gaucho culture.
I highly recommend experiencing this while visiting Buenos Aires. It was a short ride from the city. The booking was very easy and friendly. Our experience include on time shuttle service from hotel to estancia with a very entertaining driver. Upon arrival to the picturesque town of San Antonio de Areco we met up with our wonderful guide Guillermo. He was very knowledgeable and informative about Areco. After a tour around town we made our way to the estancia. Everyone at the estancia is very hospitable and welcoming. My group and I felt at peace with such a change of pace from big city life. I highly recommend doing this tour as you will have a great experience from the delicious food to meeting the great people that make this all come together.
You can check more than 500 5 stars reviews in Tripadvisor here: Reviews for Buenos Aires Gaucho Tour
Best argentina experience in the pampas
Gwen E March 4, 2017
Awesome Argentina Experience
We are seasoned travelers, and this is one of the best tours we have ever done. The entire experience is entertaining and enjoyable. The lunch was outstanding, and our guide, Laura, was fantastic. She knew the area, spoke excellent English, and became a friend.
If you would like to take this Full Day tour Estancia near Buenos Aires with San Antonio de Areco Gaucho town visit.
by admin | Aug 5, 2019 | La Pampa
The women in the Pampas
Women in the Argentine countryside were present since small villages and the first estancias in Buenos Aires were settled throughout the vast fields. The women in the Pampas were the ones who inhabited these places throughout most of the day, while men were working in the fields and riding horses. They stayed in the estancias and towns, taking care of the children, and also cooking and cleaning.
Women social and economic situation in the Argentine pampas
For most of history, the role of the female gaucho rural worker in Argentina has been made invisible as they were relegated to household activities. The lack of statistics about their place in the rural economy has also contributed to this invisibility.
There was a gender discourse that positioned men as the head of the production unit, and it subordinated the female labor. This did not allow them access to natural and economic resources, and therefore, did not allow them to have a monetary income, or manage productive activities or participate in public decision-making spaces.
how the women in the pampas are weaving
In this way, poverty in rural areas affected and still affects women in a more profound way that it affects men. This also results in a vicious cycle in which rural families cannot get out of poverty, as they continue to be poor for generations.
Argentina has been through its history a country that predominantly sustained itself thanks to agriculture and cattle raising, in different estancias in Buenos Aires’ province and throughout the country. Therefore, issue of the subordination of women in rural areas is key to understand the development of our economy.
Little by little, and in recent years, various public projects and programs have appeared, whether international or from non-governmental organizations, which want to raise awareness among women about the importance of their participation in production and technical training aimed at the agricultural sector.
This was accompanied by studies and the realization of statistics regarding the national agrarian reality, which were developed including a gender perspective. However, within the Argentine provinces, this discourse and these practices continue to take place in some measure in rural areas. Especially, in the more remote areas, rural communities tend to be more culturally conservative, as they adhere to traditional views and roles.
Some gaucho ladies
Also, the story of female gauchos has been invisibilized. The landscapes that the gauchos traveled through were thought to be too tough for women to survive. Nevertheless, there were women who did gauchos’ tasks such as gathering the cattle and riding a horse on long distances. Slowly, the role of the gaucho is developing into less “macho” habits.
Women’ activities in towns and estancias in Buenos Aires
But as it was mentioned before, throughout history, women in the pampas mostly stayed while the gauchos worked, and in this way they found an incentive to also develop new activities for themselves. This is how, eventually, they gave an identity to what now are the colonial towns in the countryside.
In this way, women developed several areas of argentine culture: they handcrafted, created new delicious recipes, educated themselves through local libraries they maintained and managed, and more.
The woman in the Pampas
For example, in the colonial town of San Antonio de Areco, women created the first Public Library, which still exists. It was founded in 1906 and has been ever since, run by women. These women that lived scattered throughout the pampas decided to educate themselves through books. In this way, they knew about books and about how to manage a library much better than the men who worked in the fields and in the estancias in Buenos Aires. Also, in the town you can find folkloric handcrafts shops, restaurant and bars.
The gaucho’s wives, the “chinas”, were the ones who traveled with their husbands and kids. In these trips, once again they were the ones who had to take care of the children, they cooked and cleaned for them also. Eventually, they created some famous and delicious recipes that now are part of Argentina’s culture: from the famous “locro”, to “pastelitos”, to “empanadas”, and even more. Any curious tourist can try these recipes in most of the restaurants and bars in San Antonio de Areco.
A gaucho lady in the Estancia
Finally, women also created and invented new ways to handcraft sets of crockery, and sets of beautiful and colorful blankets and more. These creations are spread all over San Antonio de Areco town as well: in shops, in restaurants, even in public spaces. This handcraft style is nowadays the last decorating trend in these colonial towns, and tourists from all over the world arrive to San Antonio de Areco to buy these objects.
The gaucho ladies on horseback
Activities of women in the Pampas
Women in the Pampas have made this town a delight for the five senses as they developed several activities: from reading and telling stories, to creating and cooking the most delicious dishes, to making the houses and the town more beautiful for our eyes with their creations. All of this makes San Antonio de Areco a perfect place to be in the presence of the women’s influence in the Pampas.
If you are interested in visiting the town, you can schedule a tour to visit San Antonio de Areco and estancias in Buenos Aires province in this link: Camino Pampa
A gaucho lady in San Antonio de Areco
Also and finally you can stay in a great working ranch, an historical one founded in 1870, managed by a Lady: Estancia de Areco
by admin | Jun 27, 2017 | Areco History, La Pampa
It remained for Ricardo Güiraldes (1886-1927) to do the perfect portrait of the gaucho in Estancia La Porteña in prose. This was a man of superb talent.
His father was a rich estanciero and he was born in Buenos Aires in 1886. He was taken to a Tour to Europe when very young and so spoke French and German as fluently as his native tongue.
From early boyhood his life was spent on the estancia where he learned the secrets of saddle and trail from a grand old gaucho of the primitive school. Who was later to be the model for Don Segundo Sombra.
As a young man he made many tours abroad and became as much at home in Paris as he was in Buenos Aires : but he was never an expatriate.
Ricardo Güiraldes` books:
In 1915 he made his literary debut with two books a collection of short stories, Cuentos de muerte y de sangre, and a small volume of poems, El Cencerro de cristal, both of which showed contemporary French influence.
An autobiography, Raucho (1917), followed, and then Rosaura (1917) and Xaimaca (1923), but none of them created any particular stir.
However they did serve to gather around him a group of young writers who launched a literary magazine of protest in 1924, called Proa, that reflected an anomalous melange of ultra French trends with a groping nationalism that took fresh interest in the Argentine background and folklore.
This brought about a back-to-the-soil movement under the banner of Martin Fierro and probably inspired Güiraldes to begin the book that was to make his reputation.
Days at Estancia La Porteña
In bad health he went to live at Estancia La Porteña , the family estancia, and there renewed his intimacy with the sturdy old gaucho who had been the mentor of his youth.
Each morning he went to a ancient ombú near the house, to write of his boyhood life when he wandered the pampas with the old cattleman. It served to brush away dark thoughts, and he worked feverishly because he knew he was doomed.
With simplicity and sincerity he told of his flight with Don Segundo Sombra and of the five years they spent together roaming the pampa of Buenos Aires.
It is hardly a novel; rather a succession of delightfully told impressions that flitter through the pages like movie episodes across the screen, yet give a vivid and human picture of every facet of gaucho life and point of view.
There is no love interest, only a boy´s hero-worship for Don Segundo –a character superbly drawn with lean restraint – and the transformation of an eager youth into a man possessed of virtues of courage, quixotic sportsmanship, and innate personal dignity. It is done with a sympathy and insight known only to genius.
Don Segundo Sombra (1926) had an immediate success in Buenos Aires and the rest of Argentina, for it was colored with the same sort or enchantment that made Huckleberry Finn immortal.
Ricardo Güiraldes had little time in which to savor his success, for he died within a year of the publication of his great work.
His funeral in San Antonio de Areco was a tribute to the integrity of the picture he had drawn, for 250 sad and silent gauchos, mounted on horses of every color, their silver bridles scintillating through the thin dust raised by a thousand hoofs, followed his coffin to the grave.
by Edward Larocque Tinker: Reference in Wikipedia
If you plan a visit to Estancia La Porteña : Tour to San Antonio de Areco & Estancia
Museum Ricardo Guiraldes in Spanish: Museo Gauchesco en San Antonio de Areco
by admin | Oct 27, 2016 | Areco History, Traditions
Juan Jose Draghi silversmith: Born in San Antonio de Areco, from a family of farmers in the province of Buenos Aires. Inspired by a strong vocational impulse, and generating a great technical command of the trade learned solely through experience, intuition, and a creative genius that earned him prestige as the re-discoverer of traditional Argentina silverwork.
His Draghi silversmith concerns and unique ability to handle the chisel led him to be in 1971, one of the 38 craftsmen present in the first week of Crafts Exposition in San Antonio de Areco.
Draghi silversmith piece of work
History of Silversmithing in Argentina:
Midway through the 20th century, silverwork in Argentina was losing its essence, as well as one of its most important qualities: its identity.
Industrialization stripped the works of their unique character, just as it did to so many other trades, substituting individual craft with the generic printing techniques of mass production.
Silversmith description
Ricardo Güiraldes from San Antonio de Areco took the journey of preserving the gaucho spirit of the epoch intact-embodied in his immortal Don Segundo Sombra acclaimed book: the most important novel about gauchos.
His work demands commitment to the preservation of the estate of noble traditions passed from generation to generation.
Juan Jose Draghi silversmith
Therefore it’s not by chance that Juan José Draghi silversmith, devoted advocate of these values, always speak out loud: “I became a silversmith because I was born in Areco.” In San Antonio de Areco he found the source of inspiration to develop his work and start with tenacity upon a self-taught path.
He undertook a profound study on national fashions and customs, and inspired himself by trying to re-create the classic pieces on exhibition in the Ricardo Güiraldes Museum of the Gaucho, and wear by real gauchos in the Estancias.
Draghi workshop
The handicrafts of Juan Jose Draghi silversmith are today spread out in a tour throughout the world. Many of them are very far away from Areco and Estancias, where they were conceived.
Juan José Draghi is faithful interpreter of the aesthetic personality characterized by the gaucho and its current expression, his contemporary equivalent.
Juan Jose Draghi silversmith was devoted to his principles, as well. Another loyalty that stand out.
Draghi silversmith in San Antonio de Areco
This silversmith that is important in San Antonio de Areco and Argentina, has received many awards and satisfactions of a different order. But we imagine that none can be so overtaken experienced as when he was handed the gifts to be given to the Kings of Spain, Don Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia. That “facón” sheathed silver and gold, and that “rastra”, must be the most admirable few garments created by Draghi silversmith
Draghi in San Antonio de Areco
Presidents of USA: Reagan and Bush; the Prince of Saudi Arabia, Turki and Saud Faisal Al Saud; Chancellor Hellmut Kohl of Germany, among other world figures, have presents in silver with the Draghi´s punch.
The flag bearer of the Argentina Army 1st Battalion Logistics and their escorts, will take forever pieces of work of this great Argentina silversmith.
Currently his sons are still nurturing this art: Juan Patricio and Mariano, whose pieces have been selected to represent Argentina craftworks in the United States and France for World Cup 1994.
Partially extracted from the website of Draghi Plateros Orfebres, and Comodoro Juan José Güiraldes letter from May 9th, 1994.
You have the opportunity of visiting this great Criollo silversmith workshop in San Antonio de Areco and many other artisans in this Full Day Tour to the Gaucho town Areco
Mas acerca de las tradiciones del gaucho en Español: Tradiciones en Tour de Estancia Buenos Aires y San Antonio de Areco
Bus tickets and Tours to San Antonio de Areco and Estancias near Buenos Aires
by admin | Oct 26, 2016 | Estancias Buenos Aires, La Pampa
Estancia El Ombu de Areco :Just 120km away from the city of Buenos Aires in San Antonio de Areco district, the General Pablo Riccheri bought this property in 1870, and then transformed it into a working ranch and then the years later finished the construction of the main house, with its italian style villa architecture, for his family.
History of the Estancia
President Julio Roca appointed Riccheri Army Chief of Staff, and on July 13, 1900, citing his “intelligent furor and single-minded dedication to our military procurement needs,” President Roca named him the nation’s War Minister. His tenure was marked by ongoing efforts to modernize the Argentina Armed Forces.
In 1910 was promoted to the rank of Major General. Riccheri believed the military should remain a disinterested party in Argentina politics. He nevertheless lent his support in 1909 to UCR leader Hipólito Yrigoyen’s call for universal male suffrage and the secret ballot.
Many years later the Estancia El Ombú was sold to Robert Dowdall: an expert (English origins) criollo horses breeder (you can buy his book “Criando Criollos”)
In 1934 Eva and Cristina´s grandfather, Enrique Boelcke, bought this Estancia property of 300 hectares. It is still, as it was then, used for arable farming and raising cattle, which allows the visitor to also experience these activities.
At the Estancia el ombu de areco
Nowadays part of the Estancia is populated with near 350 Aberdeen Angus cows, approximately 80 criollo horses, few sheeps a some other farm animals managed by the gauchos.
In 1993 the Estancia was adapted to receive tourists looking for an authentic gaucho experience in the Buenos Aires pampa.
The San Antonio de Areco River runs within two kilometres of the house and can be reached by walking through a wild landscape of tall grass and mixed woodland.
Horseback riding at the Estancia
Overhead you will see caranchos, chimangos, barn owls, herons and many other native birds of the Pampas.
Architecture of Estancia el Ombu de Areco
The porch surrounding the Estancia house is absolutely beautiful with an abundance of climbing plants, columns, big heavy wooden doors and a light airy atmosphere. Flowers and more flowers surround the two swimming pools.
Some of the bedrooms overlook the refreshing water. The bathrooms are in perfect condition and full of dainty details.
Barbecue at the estancia el ombu de areco
Eva is an agricultural engineer, but for the last more than 20 years she is devoted also to this hospitality activity of the estancia receiving visitors in a full day tour.
Learn more about the program of a real gaucho experience
You can book a Full day tour to San Antonio de Areco town with a visit to the gaucho Estancia by clicking here
This Buenos Aires gaucho tour program includes:
– Transfer from Buenos Aires picking you up in your apartment or hotel
– Tickets for the Workshop/gaucho Museum in San Antonio de Areco town
– Bilingual local Tour guide (Argentine)
– All the food and drinks mentioned are included
– Horseback ride or if you prefer a carriage ride with the company of the gauchos: How is the horseback riding in the Estancia
If you prefer to take a Tour focused in the Colonial Architecture of the gaucho town
Mas información en Español sobre las Estancias: Las Estancias
