Buenos Aires and the Navarro Cowboy Festival
Just a reminder: This update covers events from December 2019…
Our return to Buenos Aires was uneventful. But we made up for that quickly by hitting the ground running! We did our best to visit every museum, palace, church, and other historical monument we had missed during our first stay in this beautiful city. The cafes and restaurants continued to delight our palates and the many murals that can be seen throughout the city delighted our eyes and imaginations. One of the curious things we observed was that on the day before trash pickup occurs a large number of people can be seen around and inside large trash bins. They vigorously separate out the recyclable items from the ‘trash’. It’s not what we are accustomed to in terms of a recycling program, but it works here.
In addition to the churches and palaces we also visited a number of art museums (Sharon’s mom paints) which we all enjoyed. And of course you can’t come to BA without visiting its world famous cemetery…It really is amazing; absolutely enormous but at the same time quiet and contemplative. It is also the final resting place of Eva Peron (I say final, but if you read the history of her remains you might not be so sure). We also got a tour on a 100 year old navy schooner that had sailed around the world multiple time.
We rented another car and left Buenos Aires for the small town of Navarro to attend their traditional cowboy festival. The festival opened with a fabulous musical show that consisted mostly of acoustic guitar and time honored cowboy favorites. The next day at the fairgrounds there were many different cowboy competitions. The first one we saw was the horseshoeing competition – each man shoeing a horse as quickly and perfectly as possible with only basic tools. Next we saw a horsemanship contest that included getting the horse up to a gallop and then stopping suddenly at a marked spot on the field (see pictures).
The most fascinating, and our favorite, competition is called “La Sortija” which means The Ring. In this competition, four riders push their horses to full gallop and try to get a metal ring about the size of a wedding band using an object that looks like a metal pencil!!! It is even harder than it sounds. The fact that anybody gets it, EVER, is quite extraordinary. We especially loved watching the horses flying by us at full gallop only a few feet away – we could feel the ground shaking under our feet. There are lots of pictures below of this event, I am sure my description does not do it justice. The last event was barrel racing, where a pair of riders would compete to see who could finish rounding the barrels first.
The final event for the cowboy festival was a grand parade through town. It included riders of all ages (we saw children as young as 5 yrs old riding full size horses!). The central part of the parade was definitely horses though – I have never seen so many horses in all my life. We estimated that over 1,000 horses passed us by during the four hour parade! During the parade some local children became interested in where we were from and what we were doing in their town. You see, of the thousands of participants and spectators at this event, we were the ONLY foreigners. We spent some time explaining where we from and why we had come and joked around with them a bit. Forming enough of a relationship that they were happy to pose for a picture before we left.
From here we hurried back to Buenos Aires so Sharon’s mom could catch her plane back to Bend, Oregon and we could fly back to Salta in Argentina. We had seen and done so much together over the last twenty-six days, we were going to miss her. It was so wonderful to share our adventures with somebody else we love; exploring, learning and laughing! Another benefit was a month long break from riding the motorcycles – which we were now really excited to get back on again (absence makes the heart fonder).
We pray that you are well,
Chris & Sharon
