Day 289, 290, 291, 292 - Estancia Aguila Blanca -Tuesday 31st July, Wednesday 1st, Thursday 2nd, Friday 3rd August 2012

When we decided to go travelling and set our route, one of the first things my friend Maya said to me was that we had to go to a ranch in Uruguay that her and Ana had been too back in 2009. She said it was one of the best things she did in South America and that we would love it - a bold statement we thought! The only problem was that she couldn't for the life of her remember the name of it and so there started the search for "the one". From when we landed in Colombia, our first stop in South America, I heard about various ranches and emailed Maya with the names but none of them turned out to be the one. Leading up to us going to Uruguay my search increased but still to no avail could we find the ranch and so it came that I was sitting in our hostel in Colonia, Uruguay, having given up all hope of finding the one and instead was considering another one, when I, quite unexpectedly, came across a webpage of Estancia Aguila Blanca. I was thinking how nice it looked when suddenly up popped a picture of Maya and Ana riding horses - bingo - it was so funny!! And so, this morning we started our travel to the ranch - it was an early start at 5.30am, a freezing cold day and two bus rides plus a taxi but it was worth it! The ranch or as it is better known, estancia, is a thousand hectare cattle ranch situated in the hilly district of Lavalleja. We were greeted by Pat, the ranch owner and a lovely lady who although had lived in Argentina for over twenty years, was originally from the Lake District in the UK. We were shown to our room which was lovely with a big roaring log fire to keep it warm, and settled ourselves in before heading back to the kitchen for lunch. And what a lunch it was…………..we started with homemade bread and carrot and pumpkin soup, then lamb lasagne with salad grown in the garden followed by dulce pancake desert with coffee whilst all the time chatting with Pat and learning about the history of the estancia. We'd planned to do some horse riding in the afternoon but it was so cold and wet inside that we ventured out with Pat to see all the horses, but after twenty minutes gave up and huddled by the fire in the front room whilst reading and watching the Olympics. Come 5pm we were presented with tea and homemade carrot cake and then at 8.30pm we were served a three course dinner! We went to bed very happy and full up with the fire to keep us toasty! And so it followed that our three days at the estancia were made up of eating lots and lots of lovely homemade food, chatting to Pat and her son Jonathan who runs the estancia, going for long walks with the five dogs in tow, riding the horses, making the most of the lovely fires and basically relaxing and having an amazing time!

The horse riding was a real experience especially as Ad had only been on a horse once before and it was 15 years ago and I hadn't rode since I was ten! Our first session was fairly chilled, Ad rode a lovely white horse that we named snowy but was later renamed snowspit as she had a habit of rearing back her head and spitting all over Adam! My horse was a gorgeous dark brown and was called Anastasia - apparently not after Maya's Anastasia! We went with Santiago, the farm manager to the nearby cascades and gently trotting along with the dogs in tow - they literally followed us everywhere we went! On the second day of horse riding things heated up a bit (not the weather mind, it was bloody freezing!) as Jonathan and Santiago were trying to round up a bull that belonged to another farm and had wandered into the estancia's land. The bull was a feisty litter thing and just when you think it was cornered and going in the right direction, it would turn and charge us all! So in meant that we got our first experiences of proper galloping!! I was going so fast my hat came off! Ad was a natural and by the end was even opening and closing the gates whilst still on the horse! We also went to see a little man who lived right out in the countryside in a mud house with no electric, although he didn't speak any English and our Spanish is so little that we merely smiled at him whilst Jonathan and Santiago chatted to him and collected tangerines from his tree for us!

Another highlight was the animals - there were chickens, lambs, cows, dogs and cats! The five dogs were so lovely but one in particular took a shining to us and that was the one they called Nina or the ugly dog! They had found her when she was a little puppy and had been left in a plastic bag on the side of the road, so they bought her home and kept her. She was a funny looking thing but really cute. At only a year she has already had six pups of her own, one of which was still at the farm ready to be picked up the following week. The funny part of it was that the dad of the pups was Horta who was a very big black lab mix and about three times the size of Nino - we hate to think how that came about! She always followed us and was jumping up for a stroke! Ah and best of all was the baby lamb that lived in the other kitchen; she had been rejected by her mum and at only a three weeks was having to be bottle fed and looked after by Santiago and his wife. All through the day you could hear her barring loudly! I even got to fed her a bottle of milk on the last day which was brilliant! Although it was a bit strange as about half an hour after we watched Santiago take a live lamb, kill it (I didn't watch this bit), skin it and carve it up for meat!! It was a bit gross but interesting and also a bit of a biology lesson.

On the last day, Pat and Jonathan very kindly gave us a lift to Minas to catch the bus back to Montevideo. It was a bit sad saying goodbye as we'd spent the last three days with Pat, chatting about England and learning about her life in Argentina - it had felt like a little bit of home, especially with the Yorkshire pudding recipes and English breakfast signs on the walls! We said our goodbyes and headed to Montevideo; when we arrived it was dark, wet and very cold and so we snuggled up in our hotel room with a bottle of red, two packets of pringles, a slab of cheese, a whole chorizo, olives and a family sized chocolate bar!! The healthy eating starts tomorrow……….