Estancia Buena Vista

A good look at Corrientes ranch life.

Bonnie Tucker / FST
La Lunita, one of the small adventure outfitters that provides good destinations in Argentina to travelers interested in culture and nature, are organizing another excursion to the Buena Vista ranch near Esquina in Corrientes for May 23-25. It costs 1,255 pesos including a return sleeper bus ticket, and has a good cost:benefit ratio.
They shared with us the above collage they made from photos sent them by an Argentine amateur photographer who had a lovely time with his wife at Estancia Buena Vista earlier this month.
A few years ago I spent a day at Buena Vista in the course of a four-day drovers’ ride organized by neighboring Estancia La Rosita, and can vouch for what Daniel Mari and his wife Teresa had to say about the former and its owners. So I translated their letter to Sebastián Madina as follows:
“Dear Sebas: We had a really great time, it is a dream place, a real ranch house, very well kept up, comfortable, with lots of well-preserved flora and fauna. We rode horses, we rode around in a buggy, and we saw how a ranch works, including calf roping, how animals’ injuries are cured, how cattle, goats, ducks, pigs, buffalo, wild boar and turkeys are raised.
“The ones who make the difference are Klaus and Sarita who, in addition to being the owners, know how to treat people, with amiability, savvy, observation and attention to guests that made us feel very well cared for.
The personnel who help them know their business and are very nice. The food is excellent and the sitting areas very pleasant.
The cost:benefit ratio was very favorable to us and I got very good photos.
As always, La Lunita showed us a new place and didn’t disappoint.
Thank you.
Tere y Daniel.”
Information: 4776-7821; 15-6054-3442.

Ranches and wetlands

In Corrientes, experienced equestrians follow the gauchos, even though it means doing a bit of swimming.

Some travelers who make their way to the Iberá wetlands in Argentina’s flat northeastern province of Corrientes seek the thrill of looking a South American cousin of an alligator in the eye as it suns itself less than two meters from their boat. Others come to add a battle with a scrappy dorado river salmon or a huge surubí catfish to their sport fishing experiences. Still others are bewitched by the possibility of shooting, within the space of a few minutes, hundreds of ducks that are considered pests by rice farmers.

Corrientes is traditionally a cattle ranching province, and as the wetlands occupy 15 percent of its area, correntino gauchos are accustomed to living with and working in the water.
These gauchos, many of them descendants of the Guarani Indians who roamed the land before the arrival of the Spaniards, excel at horse training and are, along with colleagues from Salta in the Northwest, Argentina’s most colorful cowpokes. They are in the water so much of the time that those who use spurs strap them to cloth slippers that dry quickly in the torrid temperatures of the region. Others just go barefoot. And when they have to move a herd from one island to another, they unsaddle their horse, strip down, grab onto its mane, and let it pull them through the water after it, while in their wake a colleague punts a canoe laden with their clothes and saddles.

The La Rosita ranch near Esquina was the first to offer programmed “Drovers’ Rides” through the Corrientes backcountry, which always has extensive areas under shallow water. Riders do a lot of galloping, herd horses for the fun of it, and eat and sleep well at a different elegant ranch house every night. But they stay on land.

And now, US eco-entrepreneur Douglas Tompkins’ El Tránsito ranch near Concepción has taken the water thing a step further as a cultural experience. Gauchos and paying riders swim with their horses from island to island on their way to Tompkins’ San Alonso spread in the heart of the wetlands. You can fly there in a few minutes, but people who did it say that it is more fun to spend more than an hour swimming from island to island.

Information: 5031-0070.

PHOTO CREDITS: Dorado fisherman (Estancia Buena Vista). "Drovers' ride" (Estancia La Rosita). Swimming to Estancia San Alonso (Photo courtesy of Francisco Didio).