Excursion to go riding today. This was an activity that took several attempts to get booked and in the end was lined up by one of my friends who didn’t make it so I literally had no idea what to expect other than some random guy would come collect me at my hotel and we’d go. He turned out to be a really interesting guy, used to be the president of a big Argentinian insurance company and then retired and bought a bunch of land in Patagonia. Now he splits his time between there and Buenos Aires and raises “sheeps.” His property runs all along the water of Lake Argentina outside El Calafete.
Out at his place I met up with my guide. My friends and I were the only people booked and so without them it was just me and her. This actually worked out really well as we basically just struck out and did whatever we wanted all day. Not sure if it was part of the original program but I think it was also good that it was just me as it was a fairly challenging ride at times, jumping, galloping, crossing rivers etc. One of my crazy cinematic memories for the year will definitely be galloping dead on toward Lake Argentina through a flock of flamingos as they took flight around us. Despite being a better rider than me the girl I was with was clearly amused at the fact that I was learning to play Polo and that my family had a ranch in Wyoming. So I demonstrated some of my mediocre polo skills for her and then we rounded up some cows to herd around as well. A couple of dogs from the ranch came out with us and they were great. Well, they periodically would try and play with the horses which the horses obviously didn’t care for and made things challenging. But they were really well trained. When I was giving my pretend demonstration on cattle herding they immediately spread out and started herding the cows along with us.
I was pretty sore by the end of things. We had lunch back at the ranch/hotel and then I went back to town. I rested for a bit and then had dinner at a neat place, Isabel.
Sadly, I was focused on riding most of the day so I didn’t really get many good pictures.
