Postcard from Argentina: part six, continued

Kaye’s constant quest for adventure has taken her back to Argentina – the land of gauchos, glaciers, football, tango and beef

Continued from yesterday

Fast forward to 2016 and dozens of estancias dot the outskirts of Buenos Aires. And it’s on these rural estates, once the private getaways of wealthy families, where you’re most likely to meet a modern day gaucho.

I did just that by spending a day on Estancia Los Dos Hermanos – a beautiful ranch run by the hospitable Pena family, nestled in the picturesque countryside of Zapata.

For anyone who wants to learn a little about the gaucho way of life – or simply gallop through the gorgeous Argentine countryside on a thoroughbred – then a visit to an Argentine estancia is a must.

 

But even if – like my companions – you’re not particularly fussed about cowboy culture, a stay (whether it be for a day or infinitely longer) at Los Dos Hermanos offers the opportunity to escape the hustle and bustle, bright lights and sheer size of BA and relax and recharge your battery for a bit.

I was picked up from my apartment in a slightly fragile condition after yet another late night in BA (never mind New York, this is the real city that doesn’t sleep), by the charming Santiago early one Monday morning and driven directly to the estancia.

 

After a much needed medialuna (more’ish small half-moon shaped croissants) and coffee and a warm welcome from Rosario (Rose), one of Ana and Pena’s five children, I soon felt much better and ready to don my riding hat and embrace my inner cowgirl.

Jorge, Los Dos Hermanos’  resident gaucho helped me mount Moro – my thoroughbred for the day – and taught us the basics (how to hold the reigns and halt a horse) before leading our group of three out into the great Argentine outdoors.

 

Trotting along trails in air so fresh it made me feel giddy, I saw no roads or shops – only horseshoe prints. After the non stop noise of Buenos Aires (noise is everywhere in BA), I found the vastness and emptiness lovely.

We returned to the ranch from our morning ride happy if hungry – which was just as well as a generous (the folks at Los Dos Hermanos certainly don’t expect you to starve) al fresco asado was waiting for us.

 

The afternoon is your own to explore the estancia, take a dip in the swimming pool or an afternoon siesta in one of the hammocks.

However tempting though it was to spend the afternoon soaking up the sun from a hammock,  I decided it would be criminal not to get back on the horse (so to speak) and live out my Argentine cowgirl fantasies.

 

On my afternoon outing, we got off the beaten path and I even learnt to gallop – something the muscles in my inner thighs and back could testify to the following morning.

Later that afternoon after watching the sun do its incredible sinking thing, we rode back to the estancia for a mate(Argentina’s beloved herb tea) with the Pena family.

 

For as much as I enjoyed riding, many of my lasting estancia memories were gained from speaking with the staff who were raised on the ranch and have tonnes of interesting tales to tell.

More than that, an estancia stands out for what it doesn’t offer: noise, pollution, pressure, distraction. It offers the kind of complete escapism from modern life you might think impossible– little wonder then that the ladies I arrived with, in need of a break from the boliches (clubs) of Buenos Aires, ended up extending their stay…

 

But if you’re a time poor traveller and can’t squeeze a day or two at an estancia into your BA itinerary and yet after a glimpse into gaucho culture, make for Mataderos – a working class barrio in western Buenos Aires named for the cattle slaughterhouses established there back in 1899.

 

Held every Sunday, this free folk fair is arguably one of Buenos Aires’ best-kept secrets and a celebration of Argentina’s rural traditions.

 

Visitors can fill their boots at the various food stalls selling regional fare such as humitas (corn cakes) and empanadas (Argentinian pies), watch locals clad in coloured skirts and bombachas (gaucho pants) perform traditional folk dances in front of the huge outdoor stage and pick up handmade leather bags for a fraction of what the vendors in tourist heavy San Telmo sell them for.

 

However the standoutof La Feria de Matadero is without a doubt La sortija: expect to see gauchos galloping at their fastest along a corridor of sand before rising up out of their saddle  – leaving just their feet in the stirrups – in an attempt to spear a small ring, all the while cheered on by rowdy locals.

Mataderos is a million miles away from chi chi Palermo (both literally and metaphorically) and a bit of a schlep to get to (take bus 126 from downtown for an hour) but make no mistake: it’s worth the journey for the chance to see the 21st century gauchos of Argentina.

 

NEED TO KNOW

Los Dos Hermanos
Day outing at the estancia costs 1,600 pesos per person and includes breakfast, lunch (with alcohol),  tea and horse riding in both the morning and afternoon. (cabalgatas@estancialosdoshermanos.com; www.estancialosdoshermanos.com)

Feria de Mataderos
This traditional Argentine street fair takes every Sunday from 11am-8pm, place March-December. Throughout February (summer), Feria de Mataderos runs on Saturdays, starting at 6pm. Times are subject to change though, so do check the website before heading all the way out to the Mataderos barrio. (4342 9629 4342 9400 ext 2830; feriademataderos_mc@buenosaires.gob.ar; www.feriademataderos.com

To read part one of Kaye’s Postcard from Argentina series, please click here

To read part two of Kaye’s Postcard from Argentina series, please click here

To read part three of Kaye’s Postcard from Argentina series, please click here

To read part four of Kaye’s Postcard from Argentina series, please click here and here

To read part five of Kaye’s Postcard from Argentina series, please click here  and here

Words and pictures: Kaye Holland

Postcard from Argentina: part six

Kaye’s constant quest for adventure has taken her back to Argentina – the land of gauchos, glaciers, football, tango and beef

Continued from last time

Buenas dias dear reader,

And just like that, it’s autumn (otono) in Argentina. Sure it’s still  t-shirt temperatures by day, but going out at night  – cue the violins – now necessitates the wearing of long sleeves.

Autumn in Argentina also signals the end of the political honeymoon for Mauricio Macri. The international investment community may continue to be smitten with the new Argentine president, who assumed office at the start of summer on 10 December 2015, but an increasing number of Argentines aren’t happy with the measures Macri has taken to make Argentina a market darling (Barack Obama's recent visit - just over 100 days into Macri's term - was the first to the South American country by a US president since 2005)  again.

The blue eyed businessman – the first centre-right leader to come to power since Argentina returned to democracy in 1983 – recently reached deals with US creditors who had balked at the ‘no pay’ stance of ‘Queen’ Cristina (Macri’s predecessor) in the wake of the country’s 2002 default on US$100 billion in bonds. As a result, Argentina will now pay US$4.65 billion to the hedge funds –  a 25 percent haircut on the funds’ original demands. Macri justified the deal claiming:”If Argentina is left out the world, you can not even begin to walk the path of development.”

But if the plethora of protests – as much a daily event here in Argentina as an asado (bbq) – against Macri and the new government are anything to go by, it seems that the Argentines would rather their country was kept out in the cold than endure the president’s painful austerity measures.

Case in point? The Argentines are used to electricity subsidies (monthly charges of 50 pesos or less for electricity were common under Cristina’s watch). Consequently Macri’s price increase of 300% – regardless of the fact that it has been for the good of the country (I can’t count the number of times, my apartment was without electricity for at least 48 hours when it was close to 100 degrees outside during the Peronist reign) has been a bitter pill for the people to swallow.

Nor have the Argentines – who by all accounts are better at life than most of us, juggling 101 jobs and hobbies well into the early hours – reacted well to the sticker shocker that greeted them in the supermarket (prices for their beloved beef fare up by 60 per cent) on their return from their summer holidays.

Marci may have claimed in a recent interview with an Argentine TV outlet that “the gradual way out of the disaster left [by previous governments] is via gradual austerity,” but his belt-tightening easures are alien to the average Argentine who – as the old adage goes – will make one peso and spend two.

Make no mistake: Buenos Aires’ former mayor has made great strides in reviving Argentina’s ailing economy (thus fulfilling his election motto of ‘let’s change’) but he has a mammoth job on his hands in trying to placate the fiery local population who, under the Peronist Kirchners and their socialist policies, became accustomed to the good life…

Yet while Macri and the Argentines are rolling up their sleeves and returning to the office, I saw the start of Autumn as the perfect time to roll up my clothes into an overnight bag and escape to an estancia (ranch) so as to experiencegaucho culture – without the crowds.

Gaucho (pronounced gow-chose) culture has always held an allure for me and for obvious reasons. Gauchos – much like their American counterpart, the cowboy – were rugged risk takers who preferred to pass days full of adventure under the wide open skies as opposed to be confined to a particular city or place.

As both a freelance journalist who doesn’t keep regular hours (I hate regular hours) and a wanderer, hell bent on seeing seeing new places (I am someone who is always thinking of world as a whole and planning trips to some part I haven’t yet seen), I can relate, in some small way, to the gauchos’ nomadic lifestyle.

Argentina’s gauchos never knew the the order and convention of domestic life. Rather they relished the excitement, the movement and the constant moments of crisis that life on horseback in the Pampas (a fertile lowland area of Argentina) afforded them. They were afraid of regularity which, for the gauchos, meant dullness.

But it wasn’t until the Argentine War of Independence (fought from 1810-18), when the gauchos were able to employ their knowledge and experience of the Pampas (an area that stretches from Patagonia to Uruguay) to aid Argentina in winning independence from Spain, that the gaucho became a national hero.

Their legend was cemented in stories such as Don Segundo Sombra (which tells the tale of two gauchos) by Ricardo Güiraldes and poems like José Hernández’s epic 2,316 line Martín Fierro. Today the composition with its famous stanza “A son am I of the rolling plain, A gaucho born and bred, And this is my pride, to live as free as the bird that cleaves the sky” has been translated into 19 languages and is one of the most widely read, analysed, and discussed pieces of literature ever produced in Argentina.

But the aforementioned masterpieces weren’t enough to save the gaucho, whose demise occurred in the late 19th century. The reduction of labour costs in the countryside, forced many gauchos onto estancias (ranches) where they still got to work with their beloved horses (as the saying goes, “A gaucho without a horse is only half a man”) but felt stifled in that they were settled with regular wages and responsibilities.

Fast forward to 2016 and dozens of estancias dot the outskirts of Buenos Aires. And it’s on these rural estates, once the private getaways of wealthy families, where you’re most likely to meet a modern day gaucho. I did just that by spending a day on Estancia Los Dos Hermanos – a beautiful ranch run by the hospitable Pena family, nestled in the picturesque countryside of Zapata.

To be continued tomorrow

To read the second part of Kaye’s postcard from Argentina: part six, don’t forget to log onto Just About Travel tomorrow!

To read part one of Kaye’s Postcard from Argentina series, please click here

To read part two of Kaye’s Postcard from Argentina series, please click here

To read part three of Kaye’s Postcard from Argentina series, please click here

To read part four of Kaye’s Postcard from Argentina series, please click here and here

To read part five of Kaye’s Postcard from Argentina series, please click here and here

Words and pictures: Kaye Holland

Restaurant of the week: M Restaurants

Top of the charts of popular New Year resolutions? To lose the pounds we packed on, over Christmas. However half way through January – if you’re anything like the Haute Time team – chances are you’ve had enough of being cooped up at home, consuming a carb free diet.

Happily eating healthily doesn’t HAVE to mean house arrest. If you want to dine out sans guilt, follow in Haute Time’s well heeled footsteps and make for M – aka Martin Williams’ first solo venture.

The former Gaucho boss’ new venue – whose launch in November 2014 attracted the A list likes of Keith Allen, Michelin-starred chef Tom Aikens, cricket ace Michael Vaughn, Heather Kurzner and Tiny Tempah who performed a string of hits including Earthquake, RIP, Pass Out andTrampoline – encompasses a drop dead gorgeous cocktail bar, a wine tasting room, a secret den and four private dining and events spaces plus two restaurants, Grill and Raw. The former serves serving £149 Kobe steaks and  £3,000 bottles of wine but if you’re still on a January health kick, then Raw – which as the name suggest, specialises in small plates of raw food – is the restaurant for you.

Sounds tedious? That’s what we thought until we picked up our chopsticks and got stuck into that’s full of some of the most saintly sounding but delicious dishes imaginable.

Standouts include the Smoked baby beets (balsamic, goats cheese, almonds) - a riot of colour and texture – and the sugar snap peas accompanied with wasabi, both from the ‘Leaves and grains’ section of the menu devised by Jarad McCarroll (formerly Chiltern Firehouse).

Scallops and bacon made with scallop tartare, apple jelly and bacon crumble from the ‘Tartar and Tiradito bar’ and sashimi are equally satisfying but the knockout dishes are the Forbidden hotspots: the Chicken Yakitori was beautifully presented while the veggie version – Crispy aubergine, tofu and salted chilli – was no less fabulous.

For dessert, there’s a wonderfully creative White chocolate and lavender soup, served with poached apples and coconut tuile, Ginger toucan (toasted granola, organic honey granita), Fruit ceviche (pineapple, torrontés, black cardamom, vanilla bean yoghurt) and a Trio of scummy sorbets (coconut, plum, quince).

To drink, choose froman array of Organic and bio-dynamic wines as well as an extensive sake list. If that sounds too virtuous though, you can always move up to the mezzanine level where you’ll find M Bar – designed by Lance Perkins, bar and beverage director of the Edition Hotelwhich recently won the ‘Best Hotel Bar’ at the London Bar & Club Awards.

Raw’s setting also elates: think polished, concrete tiling and brightly coloured seating that includes sharing tables and high stools. And don’t forget to visit the unisex bathrooms before you leave: the imported heated Japanese-style toilets are a real talking point!

Factor in perky yet professional service (our waitress, Natasha, was impeccably smart and efficient) and you’ve got an extraordinary restaurant – you’re unlikely to have been anywhere like it before – at the top of its game.

Bottom line? Being healthy has never been so fun or so easy. We’re going back next weekend.