I don't care what you say, Gauchos > Cowboys

Sooooooo on Friday the CIEE study abroad group took a day trip to San Antonio de Areco, which is outside of Buenos Aires.  The town itself is just some small little place, but it has Pampa near it, and that's what we visited.  The bus was incredibly comfortable, and I enjoyed a good ol' chat with my pal Michael.  We discussed a common theme between us - directly translating things that aren't meant to be directly translated.  This time: popular song lyrics.  OH FUN.  Seriously though, I was doubled over at times.  Lady Gaga just doesn't go too well in Spanish. 

NOTE: There are millions of pictures on Facebook of these escapades.  The pics included here are just to make my blog more complete and look pretty.

Anyway, upon arrival I broke out my frisbee and a bunch of people joined me...i got another sweet throwing-around session in.  SO much fun.  I missed it so much.  Then we played some soccer, and I took a place as goalie (se dice arquero aquí).  That way I could go easy on my foot.  Well, going easy on my foot and not being good at goalie saw me get scored on like 3 times before I retired.  Lame.  I’m a better defender or midfielder or forward.  So basically I’m bad at goalie. 

We spent most of the day just kind of chilling here and there, chatting and enjoying ourselves in the beautiful weather.  We had some Choripan (Chorizo+pan), which I found wonderful.  Also Café con leche and things like that.  Super relaxed. 

Before dinner we watched (and some were chosen to participate) in some traditional Gaucho dancing (folclore).  I took video (see Facebook).  It was pretty impressive, and I enjoyed the show quite a lot.

After that, a pair of friends and I waited for a while to ride on the horses (they were in high demand) and eventually settled for the last carriage ride instead.  Worth it.  It was about 20 minutes of passing through la pampa…which is completely beautiful.  When we arrived back at the main buildings we found ourselves 10 minutes late to a show of Gaucho skill.  And was it impressive.

These gauchos spent loads of time hanging off the side of their horses and performing stunts of the insane type.  One guy coaxed his horse to permit him to casually lie with it…and on and on.  Then some of these dudes played a traditional game (called Pato I believe)…two teams of three, two goal things to toss the ball-thing through.  The teams toss the ball back and forth (it has a net of leather handles on it) and then try to score.  The other team tries to snag it out of the air or make the other team drop it, or just make their scoring attempt fail.  And back and forth, turnover turnover turnover.  It got pretty intense at times.  Did I mention it was on horseback?  Again, some film along with a good amount of picture are on facebook.  Go check them out.

That's all for THIS post.  I apologize for the tardiness of these posts.  I should put up another one or two soon, possibly today...a lot has gone on.