Enriques Ranch

Enrique´s cabalgatas (horse riding) ranch had been recommended to us by a friend who said it was a must do in Argentina. Based on this we decided to phone Enrique himself, who handles all the bookings personally, and book ourselves in for some gaucho living in the heart of the Argetninian countryside for a few days. Enrique lives about an hour out of the city of Salta on a farm on his own and employs a handful of people to help him run the place and host tourists. At his house you can stay as long as you like (altough it is expensive so backpackers like ourselves usually opt for a day or two), each day you will go horseriding in the surrounding countryside, up and down mountains, etc, accompanied by a guide or two. In the afternoon you return to a HUGE lunch of top quality BBQ meat, salad, potatoes and a seemingly infinate supply of red wine - which is brought out in strange unmarked green glass bottles, leading me to beleive that there is some constant flowing red wine fountain nearby - followed by a little siesta to help to food go down and try to sober up. You head out again for the evening on horseback, swaying heavily - partly because of the horse, partly the red wine - and go for another trek in another direction. By sundown, around 7 or 8, all the horses are returned to the stables and the socialising starts again in Enriques front garden. There is usually a group of 10 to 20 people at any time on the ranch, always travellers and always easy going. Around 10pm (which is early for dinner in Argentina) some more food is served. Then MORE red wine. Then some MORE food, and MORE red wine (Enrique will never allow you to sit with an empty glass in front of you)... well, you get the idea.... In one full daybetween a group of about 15 people we drank a total of 40 bottles of red wine!Ultimately the evening culminates in everyone sitting around a big table having great banter with great food and drink, watching the sun go down with mountains in the backround and nothing but the sound of crickets and animals stirring around. A really nice experience and a break from city and town life.

Obviously with my recently aquired injury (you can see in the above photo the solid cast around my shoulders which I had to wear for a week) I couldnt participate in the actual horse riding, but did my best to get involved in everything and talk to everybody, which is not that hard when you are holding a constantly full glass of red wine. During the day while the lads went horse riding I´d find a comfortable place to sit and read my book, and I couldnt have asked for a more serene setting.

As for Enrique himself, he is a real character. An extremely warm and welcoming man, he personally meets and greets everybody at the ranch, serves everyone dinner and sees to it that you have everything you need. Its also a great place to practice spanish as Enrique (through either decision or necissity) speaks no english. He seemed to take a great shine to us, making sure I was looked after during the day when the horses were out. He laughed heartily at the dinner table when he saw me squirming to eat with my broken collarbone, and would regularly come up to me playfully exclaiming ¿como estas el invalido?? ("how is the invalid?"), the nickname el invalido stuck for the duration of my stay!

All in all it was a great experience and thanks to the personal touch of enrique and his team we had an unusual but very enjoyable few days at his cabalgatas ranch.