La Cumbre, Argentina

The Estancia was an experience not to be missed. Imagine
living the dream with Clint Eastwood and John Wayne wrangling goats and cows, tethering horses, and speaking only in Spanish. If we weren't frustrated with the Spanish barrier before, you can believe it was a sink or swim adventure on the ranch. If we wanted anything, or needed anything we had to express ourselves either by Charades (Annie's favorite) or actually mastering the language (Meredith's technique). Annie and Meredith had difficulty understanding and communicating with the ranch's own John Wayne, Carlos. He seemed to drop syllables out of every word and frequently dropped whole words out of phrases.

The Estancia was an hour and half ride down, what looks like an old stream bed but they called, a dirt road in the middle of dry dusty granite and acacia ridden mountains. Ah, the Central Sierras. The temperature? 36 celcius. Oh, and there was no water so we couldn't shower or really even flush that much. A storm had washed away the dam a few days prior to our arrival so we had to manage with what we had- which was a river. A very warm river.

The food was delicious. A little glitch was when Annie said "No como gluten". "Es un problema" was the response, but a little education goes a long way, and when she found out potatoes and rice was a go, we were in business and ate meat and potatoes for the duration.

We also experienced a Mate Ceremony, or rather Virginia ceba mate to us (cebar is a verb used only for mate). You sit in a circle, pass the mate gourd to the left, and drink the dried herbs through a filtered straw out of a gourd. She added a lot of sugar to cut the bitterness, which was fantastic- it tasted like sweetened hay (NOT what you tell someone when they have shared mate with you, fyi). It is also important to not thank the person for the mate or else you will not receive anymore. Something we learned very quickly.

Horseback riding was quite an experience. We had the opportunity to take two long rides around the beautiful Central Sierras. Not only were we riding horses, but we were also searching for young calves to ear tag. There were prickly bushes up to our thighs as we weaved throughout the hills. We also got to gallop through a wide open field. Meredith sped ahead on her "race" horse, while Annie struggled to get her horse past a trot. Eventually, she succeeded.

All in all, we had a fabulous time at the Estancia.