Joining the Gaucho Club

The sky’s still inky, awash with stars, and I can only just make out a silhouette of two men on horseback riding slowly towards us, other steeds in tow. Luis and Olegario dismount and nod hola. Our gaucho guides to the Iberá wetlands, in north-east Argentina, have arrived.

As far as style goes, these Latino cowboys put the likes of Clint Eastwood to shame. Wide-brimmed sombreros at an angle, ornately decorated facónes (knives) tucked into belts, royal blue chaps and pink shirts (a man who’s not afraid to wear pink is a real man in my book). I wonder out loud whether we need hard hats or riding boots for our journey and suddenly feel very British and prim. Here the gauchos ride barefoot or wear espadrilles at most, and hats are just to ward off the sun. ‘Boots?’ Luis raises an eyebrow. ‘Maybe we wear them to a dance or for the rodeo.’

I’m in Argentina to explore the little-visited Esteros del Iberá, a vast area of wetlands similar to the much bigger, better-known Pantanal in Brazil. It’s a region often overlooked in guidebooks, a wild land between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers that was rife with hunters and poachers until 1983, when it became a protected nature reserve. Iberá means ‘land that shines’ in indigenous Guarani Indian, and more than 60 lagoons are spread over an area three times the size of Belgium, with a rich subtropical ecosystem which a trickle of tourists have only just begun to explore.

Our starting point is Estanica el Transito, a farm on the north-eastern coast of the marshlands, where we’ve gathered before dawn. We’ll ride for a day to the remote Estancia Alonso, isolated on an island, before flying to Rincon del Socorro, a reserve on the southern shore. An hour and a half’s flight to Corrientes and a three-hour drive brought us here from Buenos Aires and already the bright lights and tango shows of the capital seem a world away.

Saddlebag packed, we head off into the semi-light, the sun slowly rising to reveal a glistening world in pink and purple. Patches of mist hang close to the ground, dew sparkles on the long grass, bright green parrots take flight as we pass, horses and cattle graze in the distance. My travelling companions are Emily and Steve, honeymooners from Dublin, and as our little group walks on into the vast horizon, it feels like we’re the only people on Earth.

We’re following an old Jesuit route, leading east into the marshland, with the land underfoot shifting between sand, grassland, marsh and mud. We trudge through shallow lakes covered in reeds and cross seemingly endless stretches of open scrubland. The saddles held in just one hand (the other’s for your lasso). These are criollo horses, short and stocky, sensitive to the rain and fast footed. We slip into an easy rhythm, occasionally breaking into a gallop, absorbed by the beauty of the landscape.

After a while we come to a reed house and Diego and Lopez, gauchos and boatmen, emerge. You’ll not travel far in the wetlands without crossing a river, and we’re soon on the banks of our first. As the boys strip off, Emily and I can’t help noticing that a gaucho’s life in the great outdoors does wonders for the physique.

We load the saddles into the little boat and ride the horses bareback into the river. The sun’s been up for a while now and it’s welcomingly cool. Gradually the water rises over my horse’s back until he sticks his neck forward, flares his nostrils, and stars to swim. I cling to his mane, let the water take my body out behind me, and feel myself gliding forward, floating above his back. You can let go and hold onto the tail instead if you like and, if you lose your grip, the boat’s following behind to pick you up. It’s a fairground ride someone should invent – a submerged, thrilling carousel. The boys show off, standing up on the horses, somersaulting into the water. As soon as we’ve crossed the river, I want to do it again.

The day slowly unfurls along with the landscape, with never a soul in sight. At lunch we stop under a cluster of carob trees and lie dozing against our saddles, shaded from the burning sun, listening to chattering birdsong. For the gauchos it’s a day much like any other – up before dawn to share a mate (the ubiquitous herbal tea-like drink, served in a gourd and sipped through a metal straw), when out riding seeing to whatever needs to be done on the land: moving livestock, maybe, checking fences or training horses, then a lazy lunch and siesta before setting out once again till dusk.

Gaucho culture has undeniable romantic appeal, and nowhere more so than in Corrientes province, where they say one gaucho is equal to ten from the rest of the country. Though life has changed from the free-spirited nomadic existence of the 19th century to a slightly less romantic life working for ranches, their popular folk hero status remains. The sleepy town of Mercedes is said to be birthplace of Little Gaucho Gill, a 19th-century Argentinian Robin Hood who robbed the rich to feed the poor. You’ll see red shrines to him on the roadside, and he’s worshipped as a saint, much to the disapproval of local Catholic priests.

After seven hours and three river crossings, Luis – who, it turns out, is a doctor in Mercedes Hospital half the week and gaucho and tamer of horses the rest – points to a cluster of trees in the distance. I can just make out the low-rise homestead of Estancia San Alonso amidst the greenery.

The only way to reach San Alonso, which is located on an island on Paraná Lake, is by horse, light aircraft, or boat – water levels permitting. It’s incredibly peaceful, the long, low wooden bungalow shaded by a grove of lapacho and timbo trees, set in a garden bursting with flowers and birdsong. We arrive dusty, sunburnt and happy, to be greeted by Antonia and her daughter Mercedes, with homemade lemonade and cakes.

As night falls, the sky streaks purple and an eerie haze hangs low over the lake as Ole turns gondolier and takes us out on the water, flocks of cormorants silhouetted in trees, the screech of a howler monkey in the air.

Previously a cattle ranch, San Alonso was bought for land conservation purposes in 1996 by The Conservation Land Trust (CLT), an organisation that’s been buying up swathes of the wetlands with the intention of preventing any development that threatens the ecosystem. Owned by American millionaire Doug Tompkins and his wife Kris, who made their money with the North Face and Esprit clothing empires, the CLT’s work has not been without controversy. Conspiracy theories about why this ‘gringo’ is buying Argentine land and ranches abound – he has eight estancias (two for tourism) and more than 130,000 hectacres, with plans to add more.
Tompkins claims he is simply determined to preserve the wetlands, establish park facilities, reintroduce lost species such as the pampas deer and even the jaguar, and eventually hand the whole thing back to the government as a national park. Indeed, he has already turned a 163,000-acre sheep farm in Argentine Patagonia on the south Atlantic coast into the Mount Leon National Park, protecting the Magellan penguin rookeries, colonies of sea lions and dozens of bird species that live there. He’s done the same in Chile, too, setting up Pumalin Park, a vast nature sanctuary of temperate rainforest. Leslie Cook, manager of San Alonso and its sister properties, tells me of the CLT’s plans as we gather around the fire, where whole sides of lamb are slowly roasting. ’It’s not an easy task, there are people who hate us – neighbours who want to keep growing rice which damages the ecosystem,’ he says. ‘It’s meant to be illegal, as this is a protected reserve, but little is done to enforce the provincial law. It can be a bit like the Wild West up here and we have to police going out – but Doug is determined to do what’s right for the environment.’

We chat about horses and gaucho ways as the stars come up and fireflies dart in the darkness. As a child growing up on a farm in Corrientes, Leslie dreamt of living the gaucho life, but after an English boarding school education in Buenos Aires he became a polo champion instead before returning home to work in tourism. We’re still chatting, listening to chamamé gaucho tunes and sipping Malbec after our barbecued feast, when the electricity goes off (it’s only on for a few hours each night), and we all head to bed by candlelight, the sound of crickets ringing in the air.

It’s only when I leave San Alonso for the 20-minute flight to Estancia Rincon del Socorro on the tiny two-seater Cessna, that I truly appreciate the isolation and vastness of Iberá’s 1,300,000 hectare ecosystem. The patchwork landscape of mossy islands and sparkling lagoons stretches in all directions.

Rincon del Socorro is an idyllic hideaway – a 12,000-hectare former cattle ranch, with a 100-year-old house that’s been converted into a small, luxurious eco-friendly hotel. The whitewashed building has shaded verandas, and inside it’s all hardwood floors, deep sofas, antique furniture and books. Outside there’s a pool and terrace for dining. Much of the food comes from the gardens, with organic fruit and vegetables and free-range meat.

Rincon is at the heart of the CLT’s plans to re-introduce endangered species to the area, with 40 biologists working on environmental projects. There’s ongoing work alongside other NGOs to educate local communities in the importance of conservation, too, and slowly opinion seems to be changing – many former poachers and hunters are becoming park rangers, using their knowledge of the land and its wildlife to protect it.

The estancia’s land is surprisingly varied, from forest to open savannah, and you can explore by foot, take horses out from the stables, join a 4x4 night safari or just relax in the splendid isolation. But one of the main reasons for coming up here is Lake Iberá, one of the largest in the region, a short ride from the hotel.

As we approach over a rickety bridge, the land slips away and the lake appears as vast as the sea. We take a boat out and are soon following waterways through floating islands of knotted vegetation, the embalsados which move across the lagoon surface. Our guide Rolando cuts the engine and steers with a pole.

Suddenly I freeze. A huge alligator sits on a bank less than an arm’s length away, its mouth open as it basks in the sun. It looks like a sculpture, but I watch its beady eyes disappear into its head as it blinks, still unmoving, and hear a low hiss as we slowly move on. Around the corner we come across an altogether more comical creature wallowing in the mud – a guinea pig-cum-hippo combination, the weirdly wonderful capybara. Once hunted for their skins, the world’s largest rodents are now protected and we spot dozens, waddling on the islands or lolling in the water.

There are hundreds of bird species to see. I’ve never thought of myself as much of a twitcher, but soon I’m excitedly ticking off bird after bird – a black necked wattled jacana, a snowy maguari stork, a noisy southern screamer. You could spend hours out here, gliding slowly across the water, alone with the wildlife and the wide open skies. Though more and more eco-lodges and campsites are starting to open up around the lake, we hardly see another tourist.

On the way back home we stop off at Iberá Estancia, sister property to Rincon del Socorro, and still a working cattle ranch. If you’ve not had your fix gaucho culture, you can join them for the day, perhaps taking part in a cattle roundup, or working on the farm.

We watch the gaucho gang going about their chores, separating out the cows with a quick flick of the whip, making the horses dance as they sidestep cattle, effortlessly slick with their dark shades and sculpted faces. I stand back as they push the animals one by one into a disinfecting bath and get splattered – head to toe. As I wipe the mud off my sunglasses I once again feel like the city girl. Gaucho cool just hasn’t rubbed off on me yet.

WAY TO GO
British Airways flies to Buenos Aires from London Heathrow.An eight-night trip to Argentina including a ride through the Iberá wetlands with a guide, charter flight, meals and drinks, domestic flights from Buenos Aires to Corrientes and three nights in Buenos Aires costs from £1,779 per person with Tim Best Travel (+44(0)20 7591 0300, timbesttravel.com).