Day 5 - Bariloche (2/14/13)

Happy Valentine's Day.  Started the day with a talk by a Mapuche native indian woman.  She was explaining the situation of the native tribal people being displaced because their land is being sold and they have nowhere to go.  She explained how these tribal people have also had their schools taken away and their children are being forced to attend schools 60 miles away.  She is a teacher and is studying law; she makes silver jewelry; has four children and a husband and makes time for fighting to get lands back for the native people.

After the talk, Christina got us all loaded onto a local bus and we headed into town to explore.  Bariloche is a tourist area, with the lake as the draw in the summer months and ski slopes in the winter.  Definitely a tourist town -- t-shirt shops, chocolates and souvenir shops. 

This afternoon we headed out to a local ranch to do some horseback riding or hiking and be treated to a traditional lamb, sausage and beef barbeque.

What a delightful family we visited.  They live out in the steppe area, which is very dry and flat, but surrounded by mountains.  They have about 350 acres which has been in their family since 1875.  The family Chango (the father), Monica (the mother), Suzanna (the daughter) and Poncho (the son) run the ranch as a tourist destination.  They are under contract with our travel agency and they built a building specifically to host these rides/dinners.  Jim now will add "gaucho" to his list of abilities. 

Nine folks rode horses and five of us did a walk across the land with a guide.  Think I had some bad fish the day before and my stomach was a bit queasy -- didn't think a horseback ride would be a good thing to do.  It was so nice seeing all the horses heading out over the landscape..  It was so quiet out there -- you could hear the birds, but they were so far away you could not see them. 

After the ride and walk, everyone returned to quite a meal.  They have no utilities at the ranch.  They light by solar power.  All of the cooking was done by wood fire.  Suzanna baked rolls and bread sticks in a galvalanized box oven which was balanced over a large drum with a wood fire in it.  Wonderful!  Monica came up with salads that were unbelievable.  The wine flowed very freely (poured out of penguin pitchers, which we were told was an Argentina tradition).  Then came the chorizo sausage, lamb and beef.  And the dessert was unbelievable.  A beautiful flan, with creme de la dulce (a caramel cream) and a spun sugar heart.  Once again a wonderful experience.