Feel so rested! Sleeping almost 9 hours will do that! Breakfast started at 8 am and I went down right away because my tour started at 9 am. I could not believe how good breakfast was! Started with a beautiful croissant. Had coffee, OJ, cereal, yogurt, scrambled eggs, fresh bread with homemade jam. A lot of very tasty food.
Today’s tour was an all day Gaucho tour with the same tour company as yesterday’s tour. I was picked up promptly and we headed towards the town of San Antonio de Areco. It was a 2 hour bus ride which went very fast as our tour guide Elan talked about the city, country and history of the Gauchos. After the first hour, we stopped at a gas station for a break and to go through a gift shop. They had some beautiful leather items. When we got to the town, our first stop was the Draghi silver museum where we learned about what silver represented to the Gauchos and also saw an individual making a silver knife case. It was very intricate.
Afterwards we stopped at a local Catholic Church. An interesting fact is that a number of the priests were Irish and it wasn’t even the Irish church. There has been a lot of immigration to Argentina over the years.
When we left the town it we headed to El Ombré estancia where we spent the rest of the day. First we found a nice shady spot, (it was close to 100 degrees out) and had some empanadas. Outside of the city they are deep fried vs baked. They were also made with homemade dough, very tasty! After eating the empanadas, we went for a horse back ride through the field. The horses went relatively slow, but I could tell mine didn’t like being towards the back and a few times we passed the horse in front of us. 😊
Next was lunch. We had our own bottle of Malbec and then the food came. They start with a rice dish, a carrot dish and a salad, then the meats came. First was a whole bunch of sausages. I had to try them all including the blood sausage. Not necessarily my favorite, but with the chimichurri sauce it was very good. Then there was lamb, then chicken, then pork, then the beef. I skipped the lamb and chicken, but tried the pork and chicken. For dessert I had a piece of flan with a caramel sauce which was amazing. I am definitely seeing the Italian influence with all the eating. Can’t believe I didn’t take any pictures.
After lunch we had a dance demonstration where they had us get up and try the dance. Totally biffed it, but it was fun. The next demonstration was a Gaucho taming their horse. It was crazy what his horse let him do.
Next thing I knew it was 4 pm and time to head back to the hotel.
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