Estancia El Ombu de Areco is a historical rancho about 90 minutes south of Buenos Aires. It was founded hundreds of years ago, and has now been owned by the same family for four generations.
Somehow the words and concepts of “pampas” and “gauchos” have always seemed even more romantic than “plains” and “cowboys” to me. Bigger, grander, more exotic. So we decided to experience them for ourselves.
El Ombu is a real working rancho. Brothers Diego and Pedro still own more than 600 acres with hundreds of head of cattle, oceans of sheep, a huge remuda of horses, plus about twenty dogs that sometimes work and more often gambol across the estancia’s low, rolling hills. And gauchos. Let’s not forget El Ombu’s real gauchos who wrangle the cattle, mend the fences, and do all the other mundane things gauchos do when they’re not rescuing fair maidens from the clutches of desperados and other muy malo neer-do-wells.
It was an incredible, memorable experience. Once in a lifetime (unless we decide to do it again someday).
I love the picture of the gaucho riding off into the sunset.
Are you describing yourself when you refer to the muy malo neer-do-well?
Not in the last 24 years (Jamie and I will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary later on this trip, and we think we just passed the 24th anniversary of our first date.)