San Antonio de Areco

Today I went with two of the lovely ladies I met from the Google office, Eugenia and Geraldine to the campo. We went to a little town called San Antonio de Areco, which is about two hours outside of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of gaucho country-- gauchos are Argentine cowboys. Today was a special celebration in the town so there were lots of activities. We went to a parade of all of the local estancias (family horse ranches) and we went to a horse show where they paraded their horses around and competed in games. I've put up a few pictures-- be warned these are almost all pictures of horses :)

The actual truck used by the volunteer fire department :)



More of the parade.



There were all of these little kids riding on ponies and I just thought they were so cute!





Ok last one :)



This is the church at the center of the parade.



Ok I couldn't help myself!



The beautiful campo-- it's so nice to escape the city sometimes and just breathe some clean, country air.



Eugenia and the gaucho. This is how this conversation went:
Gaucho: "Do you like my horse?"
Leslie: "Yes, I think you're horse is beautiful."
Gaucho: "Would you like to take a picture of the horse?"
Leslie: "Uhhh ok that sounds great. I'd love to take a picture of your horse."



Typical Argentine gaucho wares.



Horses!



Gauchos!



Aaah so cute!



Here's a video of a bunch of different estancias parading around their various horses.



And here we have a traditional gaucho game called something to the effect of "La Corrdia del Cuero" or running of the cowhide leather.

To see the compete album of pictures from today, click here!