10 Noviembre 2009
A Birthday Weekend at the Gaucho Festival in San Antonio de Areco
For my birthday Ezequiel surprised me with a trip to San Antonio de Areco, which is a small town about 100 km outside of Buenos Aires. Each year they host the biggest annual "Festival de la Tradition", which is a celebration of the Argentina culture of the gauchos, which are similar to our cowboys.
I have a lot of fun pictures but unfortunately it just takes too long to upload them and this has prevented me from posting a lot this past month because I just can't find the time to spend 2 hours blogging! So I'm choosing to write without pictures so that there will be some news for you to read!
It's really interesting becuase it seems that the US and Argentina are the only countries to have developed the subculture of cowboys and gauchos. We each have a group of people whose lifestyle evolved around horses and the land. Each developed their own unique identity; with a very particular style of dress, way of life and even music and dancing.
This weekend I was completely fascinated by the gaucho style. They are so stylish! They have a particular style of pants that are fitted around the waste and ankles, but with ample fabric that created a unique silhouette around the legs and allows for comfortable life on horseback. They wear knee-high boots made of leather, and very wide leather belts decorated with silver coins and a big silver centerpiece. In the back of the belt at the base of their back, a knife in some kind of ornate sheath is always tucked for easy access. They wear a sort of blouse with a fabric tie tied loosely around their neck and their horses are always adorned with beautiful woven blankets with geometric designs that remind me of some Native American design elements.
They take a lot of pride in how they present themselves and it was fascinating to see the variations among the common style in the gaucho parade on Sunday morning. Many gauchos came into San Antonio de Areco from all different provinces of Argentina. They came to celebrate their culture and to show their skill with their beautiful horses. In the parade there must have been 100 gauchos with an average of 10 horses each. I've never seen so many horses in one place!
Leading up to this festival, the gauchos train their horses to follow around one horse that wears a bell. During the festival, the gaucho rides his horse, and brings the bell-bearing horse riding along next to him. The rest of the horses have no saddles or reins, but they follow in perfect order behind the gaucho and the belled horse. Even in small town streets with tons of people on either side, the horses stay close to their gaucho!
On Saturday night their was a big party at the Peluqueria de la Blanqueada. A peluqueria is traditionally a place where gauchos go to drink and make music. A place for men only, but this party was much more accomodating and there was tons of traditional music and dancing. It was amazing to see about 100 people doing these traditional dances that all of them had learned growing up. There was one couple, with the man dressed as a traditional gaucho and the woman as a "chinita" (woman of the country), who danced so well. They were beautiful to watch and they knew all of the dances perfectly. My impressions of these dances were that they were very proper and beautiful in a suble way. It's amazing how much meaning something can have through its subtleties. There were many common movements but each dance had its own pattern of steps. They reminded me a bit of the American tradition of folk dancing, but slower.
The countryside of Argentina is so beautiful. We went horseback riding on Saturday afternoon on an estancia, which is a country estate, with this old man gaucho. Everything about him; the way he dressed, walked and talked, was so stereotypically Argentine. It was so interesting to see where this culture comes from, and what it truly is about.
It was an amazing weekend and definitely a crash course in Argentine culture! Even the ride out there in Eze's father's car was an adventure. On Friday we left as it was getting dark and I was so surprised to see people on motorcycles without helmets on the highway. Just because of the way that Argentines drive, this seems so crazy to me! We even saw people bicycling right on the side of the highway after dark. Once we got onto the smaller road towards the town, people were passing us constantly. Even in places where it wouldn't be "safe" to pass, huge trucks were passing like 3 cars at a time!
So I'm not so interested in driving here anytime soon! There are lots of things to say about how they drive here, but I suppose I'll save that for another day's topic. It deserves it's own entry!
