by admin | Dec 2, 2019 | La Pampa
Unique and friendly Argentina cowboys
Customers` reviews on trip advisor talking about the Argentina Cowboys that they met at the Camino Pampa Tour.
Review of: “Mark B” September 7, 2017
Fantastic day that exceeded all of our expectations
First off, I highly recommend this tour and our guide Juan..
We were looking for a day away from BsAs to just enjoy and learn about life in Argentina outside the city and Argentina cowboys. We hoped to enjoy the outdoors and have a new experience.
Wow! What an amazing experience. We were staying in a flat in San Telmo and were met very early for nice drive out to San Antonio de Areco. Great conversation, many questions answered and context given to us that prepared us for the day made the drive fly by. We met our guide, Juan, in the town and he took us on a journey of history, culture and weaved in some terrific stories. He really helped us step in to another world.
San Antonio de Areco town of the Argentina cowboys:
The town was beautiful and the little chocolate shop, La Olla de Cobre, was amazing…the best Alfajores I have ever had. Then it was off to the Estancia. The Estancia was very beautiful and all the people we met welcomed us warmly and we felt truly blessed to be there.
Being from the US I had no idea how different the Gaucho lifestyle and relationship with their horses were from Cowboys in the north. Frankly, it was beautiful to see with demonstrations that highlighted the subtle but deep relationship that the Gaucho and horse maintain.
The horseback ride was very nice and relaxing which suited my daughter well on her first ever time in the saddle. We enjoyed a wonderful meal and rounded out the experience with demonstration of traditional dance and music.
Juan, José and Guillermo, thank you so much for making our holiday and leaving us with an experience we will never forget.
If you would like to take this Full Day tour Estancia near Buenos Aires with San Antonio de Areco Gaucho town visit.
The argentina cowboys at the Estancia
Review of: “SporeanGranTurism” February 24, 2015
A Different Perspective of Buenos Aires with the Argentina Cowboys
My wife and I selected this tour, because it offered not only an opportunity to visit an Argentine estancia with Argentina Cowboys to get a feel of life in the pampas, but also to visit a small provincial town. Overall, we were pleased with this experience, and would recommend taking this tour.
A driver named Jose Maria picked us up at our hotel in Buenos Aires at 8:30am. Along the way, he provided a near continuous commentary about various aspects of Argentine life and Argentina cowboys, particularly outside of Buenos Aires city centre, and in the pampas.
We had not expected this value added service, and it was much appreciated. Also, he was a skillful driver, and was very friendly and personable.
After a two-hour or less drive, we arrived at the town of San Antonio de Areco, and were greeted by a guide named Juan Manuel. He too had a wealth of information and stories to share with us, as we tour a traditional bar, a church, a traditional and a modern silversmith shops, and a chocolate confectionary shop, each of which reflected a specific aspect of the history of this town, particularly as a melting pot of immigrants from different countries.
Note that the silver jewellery in Patricio Draghi and the alfajores in La Olla de Cobre are good buys.
The Estancia in the Pampas
Afterwards we headed to the historic El Ombu de Areco estancia. By this time, we had become friends with Juan Manuel, who was very charming, on top of being an excellent guide. At this estancia, we had time to walk around and explore the estate manor and grounds, take a horseback or horse-drawn carriage ride around the pampas, have an ample and tasty lunch of Argentine BBQ specialties whilst being entertained by a bona fide gaucho performing traditional milonga music, and watch an amazing “horse whisperer” achieve complete control of his animal.
Along the way, we learnt how incorrect it was to define a gaucho as a cowboy, and what that culture truly entailed.
Afterwards, we exchanged contact details with Juan Manuel, bade him farewell, and headed back to Buenos Aires. Along the way, Jose Maria was kind enough to stop at a mini-market so that we could buy some water for use back in our hotel. At around 5pm, we arrived back at our hotel.
It was a day well spent.
If you would prefer more information about the Gauchos in Spanish
A day in the countryside where the gauchos are working every day in the Estancia
by admin | Nov 27, 2017 | La Pampa
Gaucho tour with asado is one of the most authentic Argentine experiences that you can have in the vast Pampas
The Argentine beef is most important foodie attraction in Argentina, and specially where it was originally born: in the legendary pampas where the cows where grazing for centuries.
The animals:
The spanish conquerors brought the first bovine animals to Argentina in 1552; they were seven cows and a bull and they were brought from Paraguay.
All the livestock brought to the Rio de la Plata during the sixteenth century were of Spanish origin, that is, of the Iberian type, especially Castilian and Andalusian races, from central and southern Spain, from the neighbouring districts of the ports from where the ships left for the New World.
These animals descend from the longhorn Hamitic cattle, domesticated in Egypt about BC 4000 and taken to Spain from northern Africa.
Used mainly as draft animals, they were not bred for their meat or their milk. At that time, commerce did not demand any other qualities than those these animals had, that is the reason why they continued reproducing themselves without any purpose of improvement.
The pampas were soon occupied by these cattle and since they could not be retained because fo their character, they roamed the pampas, multiplying in freedom and adapting themselves to the favourable environment.
Our Criollo race, which so closely resembles the cattle introduced by the Spaniards, developed from these animals.
They can still be found in the North of the county, in mountain areas and in scrublands of scarce vegetation.
The first vaquerías ( primitive estancias ) were created at that time. On these farms, the animals were caught in the field only for their leather, which was exported to Europe.
The Buenos Aires gaucho tour with asado
The rest of the animal was left to rot in the field. It was also fairly common that the gauchos (nomadic horsemen of the Pampas ) slaughtered the animals with the only purpose of eating their tongues.
The commercial activity began in 1602, with the creation of the saladeros (places where the meat was salted in order to preserve it) that devoted themselves to the production of tasajo (dried or jerked meat).
With the first introduction of British animals, in 1823, a new era of cattle raising began in Argentina.
The animals brought from Britain belonged to the small red bodied Celtic race, which had been used as draft animals, and which had been crossed on cattle from northern Italy and Gaul and taken to Britain by the Romans.
In 1823, the English John Miller introduced the first Shorthorn bull to Argentina. It was called Tarquin. This bull imprinted type and increase in the rate of weight gain and mature size to our Criollo livestock, and its descendants.
Extracted from the book written by Mónica Gloria Hoss de le Comte: Buy Argentina beef book here: http://www.tematika.com/libros/
Authentic gaucho experience: gaucho tour with asado
The Buenos Aires gaucho tour with asado argentine beef is the authentic gaucho experience in the pampas in the Province of Buenos Aires includes a visit to the San Antonio de Areco town and then to the gaucho ranch for enjoying the most typical argentine lunch of a variety of meat and beef with wine, beer or just sodas.
More photos and information here: Full Day Tour Estancia with Argentine Beef
We are locals of San Antonio de Areco born in Argentina that for our entire life we were accumulating special knowledge and life stories in farms, gauchos history and typical traditions.
Buenos Aires gaucho tour with asado argentine beef is based in visiting one of the oldest towns in Argentina that became the most traditional one, which means a typical gaucho community, with its rural life, economy and customs, making a real old fashioned experience
It is an exclusive Buenos Aires gaucho tour with argentine beef asado with focus in the gaucho and rural life, while enjoying the original way of cooking the delicious and famous Argentina beef, just in a way that makes the experience a sustainable tour.
If you would like to book this tour: Full description and photos of the Gaucho tour schedule
We will be picking you up in Buenos Aires in the morning in comfortable vehicles.
And once in the gaucho village, we will start introducing you to many local people and their places like bars and workshops during the morning.
By midday we will move to the ranch Estancia El Ombu: we will offer you empanadas with drinks, will show you how we are cooking your beef, meat, and sausages with an explanation, then horseback or cart riding , the asado lunch and live folcloric music, ending with a demonstration of gaucho skill with a horse
This Buenos Aires gaucho tour with argentine beef asado program includes:
– Transfer from Buenos Aires picking you up in your apartment or hotel
– Tickets for the 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
Author: Guillermo Gonzalez Guereno
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 | Nov 11, 2016 | Estancias Buenos Aires, La Pampa
The Argentina Criollo Gaucho Horse breed was originated from the old Andalusian horse brought by the Spanish conquerors. A breed of great strength and hardiness, they quickly adapted to the harsh conditions of the new geography of the Pampas and to the needs of the native and gauchos, specially those from the current province of Buenos Aires.
The ancient Andalusian horse didn’t have Arabic origins. The studs that existed in the days of the conquest, in Cordoba, Sevilla and Jerez de la Frontera, had its origins in the Barb (or Berber) horses from northern Africa, brought centuries earlier by Moorish invaders.
These horses, mixed with the native ones originated the famed Spanish horse, then known as ‘horse rider’ referring to the warriors of the Moorish tribe, who were eminent breeders and warriors.
They expanded in the Castilian kingdoms and implemented, sports and practices known as the ‘school of the rider’, which gave way to the traditions, styles, methods for breaking and riding that still pervade among gauchos in Estancias.
Parade of Criollo Horses
The Argentina Criollo Gaucho Horse breed is born
The horses of the conquerors gave rise to different types of South American horses.
“From those stallions and mares, exposed to different weathers, fed with different pastures, employed on different tasks, the descendent horses got adapted to the geographies, treacherous diseases and risks of the environment. In turn, somatic morphologies and physiological gifts managed by the crosses and selections imposed by men appeared, either within the wild herds or the cavalries.
During Colonial times, the Criollo horse became part of the history of those lands, it contributed to the construction of the new countries. The Criollo horse generated a culture around himself, a new venue for human expression. It helped indigenous groups to become riders too -Araucanos, Pampas and Tehuelches- to prolong their freedom with help of these animals, which joined their collective life, becoming their weapon, vehicle, food and passion.
Some of the animals used for warfare, brought in 1535 by Don Pedro de Mendoza, were set free after Buenos Aires was destroyed. Thanks to the conditions of the pampas, that little lot of horses adapted and reproduced portentously. The descendants formed herds of hundreds of thousands of wild horses –known as baguales- which were regarded in amazement by the Spanish conquistador Garay when he arrived to those territories in 1580.
The colonial life and stormy history of the nascent Argentina revolved around cattle and horses. Sales of leather, beef and tallow sustained the country. The cattle ranches were handled using horses until the introduction of barbed wire. The gauchos emerged as the most complete expression of man on horseback.
Some Argentina Criollo Gaucho Horse in the Pampas
Decline and new rise of the Argentina Criollo Gaucho Horse
Argentina was a country populated by native horses descendent from the Andalusian breed. However, from the mid-Nineteenth Century, British and Percherons horses were introduced to the country. The indiscriminate crossbreeding spread in search of higher horses. However they were not very functional for war, livestock or travelling. By the early Twentieth Century in some areas of the province of Buenos Aires it stopped being usual to find pure Criollos.
Some ranchers, including the Argentine zootechnist Don Emilio Solanet, noticed such a serious situation and undertook the task of restoring the purity of the breed. Solanet found pure Criollos in the distant lands of Chubut. He bought a number of mares and stallions from an indigenous leader and led them on a historical journey of 1800 miles to his farm ‘El Cardal’ in the province of Buenos Aires. From that batch of horses, carefully preserved by isolation and the zeal of the indigenous tribes, the pure Criollos resurfaced. From such an effort the breed registry was born and its traits asserted.
Among the Criollo horses acquired by Solanet in Chubut, there were two mature ones ‘Gato and Mancha’. They did, between 1925 and 1928 the historic raid Buenos Aires -New York that covered 22,500 kilometers by mountains, desert and jungle. This is one of the most demanding functional testing distance that positioned the Criollo breed as the best on longest routes. Both horses returned to ‘El Cardal’ by boat, and died at thirty years of age.
Breed standard of the Criollo Horse
The breed standard adopted by associations of Criollo breeders in Argentina is: mesomorph, average height between 1.40 and 1.50 m hands. Chest 1.70 to 1.86, near land. Broad-based head and fine vertex. Medium lenght, robust neck, muscular and slightly prominent cross. Wide and square rump, good bones, remarkably broad chest, big muscular structure. Usually trot and gallop, although some pace, durable and adaptable to very stringent conditions.
Predominant colors are chestnuts, dun, auburn, roan and tobiano layers. Features are the dark stripe along the spine, also known as ‘mule stripe’, and the cebraduras or zebra stripes on the legs.
History of the Criollo breed written by Fabian Corral Burbano de Lara
Source: https://www.criollo-horse.com/en/history-of-the-criollo-breed.html
In the Estancia there are near 80 criollo horses for horseback, simply pet them or admire in freedom in the pampa: just book this tour for this experience: Full Day Tour Estancia departing from 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
