My first view of El Silencio Estancia.
Picture postcard. By Yabbox

As I travelled further south along the coast of Brazil my desire to escape further from the other backpackers grew within me and making my next move into Uruguay seemed like the best option. Other people I had met in Ilha Grande and Curitiba would be travelling west to experience the awesome pull of Iquazu Waterfalls and apart from acting like sheep, this would also take me further away from Uruguay.

I found this typical working farm near Durazno, which geographically was ideal as it’s just a couple of hours bus journey from Montevideo and on the way to Tacuarembo should I join up with the others later at the Estancia there.

I am met at the bus station and it’s an exciting feeling to be driven to the estancia, through open countryside (and the largest cattle refrigerators in Uruguay). The estancia is gorgeous, first impressions of wild birds fleeting around and wild flowers carpeting the grass gardens. There are big communal areas and nice cabanas. There are lovely fluffy clouds in the blue sky and old ‘working‘ ornaments dotted around, a plough, a Fordson tractor, an arbor. I can’t speak .. arrgggh. There are lots of staff to meet and a huge lunch served as soon as I arrive and there is a promise of caballero later. What a good start …

WOW So far, so good, even better. After a heavy lunch, I read, rested, wandered around the house and gardens and then helped ‘sty’ some calves for daily inspection, as they have eye infections. I learn later that Uruguay has had the worst drought for seventy plus years and so the cattle are being fed grain, so instead of the hectares of lovely grass for them to wonder around, they bunch together near the feed troughs and infections are spread by flies. I was ominously given the cattle syringe which looked like something out of a schizophrenia movie, but luckily I wasn’t expected to fill it or use it on the poor calf. And it was just the one of them that was given the treatment and spat and tried to extricate itself from the stocks. I don’t blame her.

I was then shown my horse, no introductions made, nor questions of my previous experience or ability asked, nor methods of mounting explained! I approached my horse and thinking back ten years to the slightly smaller cousins in Mongolia, I went to the left side and jumped on. There were some adjustments to the stirrups made, I pulled too hard on the reins and the horse walked backwards. I began to get a feel for it, began to feel more comfortable, not least because the sheepskin saddles are so much softer then the Mongolian wooden style! But I need to learn another style of riding, that’s not to say I’m a master of the other!

Off we walked, through fields of cows, opening gates with an interesting hinge mechanism and mustering the cows together with the help of the Gaucho’s poorly looking dog. I was given the line down one side of the field to stop them running back around. I have a feeling I wasn’t that necessary! Well maybe once! But it was definitely a good start.

I think cow’s are actually fairly intelligent and once we had directed them through one gate and into a holding field, they came back around on themselves and walked through another gate next to the first. I was thinking why didn’t they just wander into the open field, while they were thinking why don’t they put a gate in the other fence, so there’s just one gate for us to walk through! Basically they had a choice of two gates; they all went right, i.e. not back through the gate and back into the field they had just come from. I wandered why we didn’t close the gate on the left but there was no need. Whether it was intuition, brains, or just routine I’m not sure. Maybe they could smell the new grass. Maybe they also had their evening meal in this field. I wish I could speak to ask these little questions.

Juan, the gaucho, gave me a little whip – you’re not a gaucho without a whip in your hand apparently! My white steed, who I named Peter, or Pedro, after Peter the Great (no idea where that came from), was a little lazy under my early command. I now found out, perhaps a bit too early on, how to gallop (galopa!), and from then on it answered to my ‘spurs’ of encouragement or more accurately stroking of the whip across his hind. Now I understand the term, ‘showing him the whip’ – I didn’t actually need to use it most of the time, just wave it near his vision and off we went.

Juan then left on another job and I was left with Gonzalez, the owner, across empty grass fields without nothing man-made (save a few fences) for miles around to survey his lot, with a capital A. On the way back we did a little more herding. Weren’t they the ones I pointed out we had left behind at the start? This time, without Pinta the dog I felt more of use. We finally arrived back at the farm buildings and I was left to dismount my tired steed and de-shackle the saddle with little guidance, then told to throw water over her sweaty back before letting her off to rejoin her friends for the evening. I now realized my horse was more of a Patricia than a Pedro! I’m impressed with my own comfort and ability around the horse and Gonzalez seemed positive at the end of the first day too. I am also impressed by the ranch – its size, its beauty, its order and patron’s kindness and directorship.

What an amazing first day, if it continues like this my little notepad will soon be full. I just wish I could speak some Spanish to converse more and ask questions. We then went for a drive, to the broken bridge and further down the road to see his sheep. With my hands now free I could use the dictionary to find words like zorro (fox), and cazador / furtive (poacher) although checking again now it proves what a terrible memory I have! We continued into town to pick up Mariella, his wife, who is very pleasant and speaks English. Then back to the ranch for a lovely dinner with the family. Mariella has ok English, wants to improve, but is lovely and seems genuinely interested, so maybe I’ll learn some Spanish after all. The problem is, I’m terrible at learning and I need to get the basics like alphabet and sentence structure before I can even start. Learn to crawl before trying to walk, or perhaps more appropriately, learn to trot, before galloping! Interestingly, an English guy called Ross and only 23 years old, lived on the estancia the previous year, self-studied, learnt the gaucho life and apparently now works on an estancia near by. Maybe I’ll hang around and learn some Spanish after all! Happy first day, Buenos Noches.

We saw two ostriches (or Rhea) yesterday, while we were on horseback, I had forgotten. Today nothing happened until el patron came back from Montevideo around 10am, with another member of staff, or a friend. We then went off to survey his land by ute, thus going further than on horseback, which I’m kind of glad about as my lower back is quite sore, aching. I think extensive horse riding has got to be good for some with back posture issues, like myself! We went to his ostrich farm first off! Yes really. Twenty or more of them roaming around the fields freely. I remember the ostrich farm in North Korea. These didn’t seem quite so big, but we didn’t get quite as close. For sure these ostriches, like the citizens of Uruguay, are much freer. But these ones ran away from us – probably because they could! We stopped down by the river (I forget the name, but it borders Flores e Durazno province) which is so tranquil e peaceful and no crocodiles apparently! He keeps Holland cows as well as Hereford / Hertfordshire? and more and they are all castrated apparently. Perhaps that’s why they cry and not because they have horrible eye infections (at least a couple of them anyway). I’m at a cross-roads, they seem to live a pretty organic and happy life, for it’s a massive estate with that much livestock per acre, but the animals are scared. That’s natural I guess, but the ones with bad eyes, it turns my stomach. You don’t eat the eye do you. And I can imagine Aunty Anne producing a lovely rare rib-eye (no pun intended) on a Sunday and me feigning not to want any – yeah right! Let alone what my Dad would think, vegetarianism is not for me. There are plenty of sheep grazing on the same land, I believe they are five or six years old so I wonder what their purpose is, surely too old to eat? Mutton? Surely there is a higher price for lamb and less time looking after? Well, I’m no farmer.

We then passed a dis-used but not in too bad a shape cottage e barn (on his estate, near the river, about one mile from the main house) and it got me dreaming, living there .. it had power, it once had a lovely garden, great potential. There was a large iguana (lagoda?) which wandered across and into the barn, adding to the abandoned but surreal feel of the place. To live on his land, to renovate the house, make it into a sellable plot, or a tourist estancia. Even advertise for help (builders, plasterers, carpenters), even film it for tv. Live on the main site (early stages at least), get to horse-ride in the afternoon in return to their work in morning, or something. Mountain biking, canoeing, horse-riding, cattle-herding, etc. etc. Only dreams though. As I said before, I’m no farmer! It could work if I had a live-in 21 year old Spanish teacher though!

So that was all in the morning and I’m glad I wrote it up after lunch as loads more adventures to remember in the afternoon. We went on horseback along the dirt road with Juan the gaucho, as well as el Patron and trotted the whole way down the road and some, further than I’d been before and I wondered why we were going so far on horseback. It was quite hard work as well, my stirrups weren’t quite right, probably because I don’t have proper gaucho boots and my shoes are not ideal to say the least. My shins are getting a bit sore from the stirrups. But more worryingly, my shoes keep falling out of the stirrups as we canter along.

I’ve been a right proper farmer (exaggerate the ‘ar’) today, been on a tractor and all sorts! Eggs and bacon for breakfast – a farmer’s breakfast! Out on horseback, but my stirrups weren’t so comfy today and here was the surprise, El Patron gave me his horse – no beginners stock on this ranch then! The brown was more comfy, especially on the trot (I didn’t want to use that word yesterday!). I’m not sure if it’s adjusting to the different diet, or my stomach being loosened up on horseback. We surveyed the land and his cattle again together with el gaucho but didn’t do any herding in particular. We were back on the ranch by mid-morning and I took myself off for a stroll. I’ve only been here 24 hours and my muscles can feel that morning ride for sure. The purple daisies (marigolds?) were out again, it seems they curl up to sleep overnight. There is still some dew on the ground too. There are some amazing birds around, nothing big, but so colourful and with ‘bits’, like crowns and that and boy, do they know how to sing. Another hearty lunch and I had built up an appetite today too. It was only after lunch I went for my walk, I thought it best after I’d stuffed myself with locally produced and cooked food. Gaucho was teasing the electric fence earlier, it really scared the horses so must be quite a current. It was a bit horrid really, but it sure made the birds flee their nest. We came across some lovely ‘wild’ horses too, which Gonzalez had let run wild. They were very friendly, rubbing noses with Gonzalez and very photogenic too, with deep shiny coats. Gonzalez was off in the afternoon, he was driving to Montevideo to see their daughter on her 21^st birthday. She is the youngest of three, 33, 32, 21, agro-engineer, architect, vet student, respectively. So I went off with Hector, the cook – come house-boy-servant and the farmer on the tractor to collect and distribute some cattle feed. We stopped by a derelict outhouse and wandered down to a large, slow river I hadn’t seen or heard before. There were even more birds chirping away down on the river banks and in the woods. Pinto is a friendly dog and a big softy. I sat on an easy chair in the sun and read some until the sun went down. It was just myself for dinner with Hector trying to be friendly. How can I learn the basics of Spanish when I can’t even remember any words (even numbers – I think I was a bit better at Portuguese)?!