Day 142 - Wednesday 8th February 2006

Martin works as a boss of a few “Campos”, which are the cattle ranches of Argentina, and he was visiting one of them close to Buenos Aires for the day, and he asked if I would like to go with him. Did I want to be a cowboy for the day. Hmm let me think. Yes. I even have the hat.

We left BsAs at about half seven and drove the 100kms to the Campo, stopping along the way to pick up lunch, some more beef. A few miles from BsAs the land reverts to plains and grassland, and extends away into the distance as far as the eye can see, perfectly flat. It continues like this for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers. This area of Argentina is known as The Pampas.

When we arrived Martin showed me about the farm, the different animals and wildlife that lived there and also of course the cows. Hundreds of them. They are all continually rounded up and moved around the farm so as they have a fresh supply of grass to eat.

The cowboys who move the cows around are called Gaucho’s and they seem a hardy breed. They sit out in the blazing sun from morning to night on their horses rounding up cows and moving them from field to field.

After driving around the Campo for the morning seeing what was going on we returned to the farmhouse for some lunch, Gaucho style. And pretty damn tasty it was too. Following lunch there was time for a siesta for an hour before I had to start my days work.

Work you say? Yep, for the afternoon I went out with the Gaucho lads and did me some herding of the cattle. We strolled off on our horses and walked slowly up around the cows. As they saw us coming they moved off in the direction we were aiming them. Any stragglers were rounded up by the sheepdog. Or cowdog, whatever you want to call it. After a couple of hours of riding the horse my backside was aching, but luckily enough we had completed all the rounding up we needed to do so were heading back to the farmhouse anyway.

Just before we finished we rounded up some sheep and put them in a pen, its just gotta be done I suppose.

The evening came and Martin was not heading back to Buenos Aires as he had to visit a farm about 500km away the following day, so I caught a bus back to the city, had some dinner, more beef, and pretty much fell straight asleep, tired from my day as the English Gaucho.