Dina and her four sons Jose Santiago (Jo), Jose Eugenio (Euge), Maria Lorenza (Mama) and Michi live between Buenos Aires and Alumine, where they have a big Estancia with plenty of cows, horses and sheep.
Jose Santiago, the eldest, takes care of running the family business and is driving every day to the Estancia in the mountains 30km south of Alumine in Pampa Rahue.
Michi, the youngest, lives in Alumine too and looked keen to follow his brother's example in taking the countryside career....
Jose Eugenio and his sister Maria Lorenza seemed less interested in the business and were both living and studying in Buenos Aires, and now enjoying their summer break in the native Alumine.
They invited me for lunch and after a good chat and a shower, the boys took me down to the riverside, where we enjoyed diving, swimming and sunbathing, the water was very nice and lots of friends soon turned up to join us in their favourite spot by the river.
I then visited Mama in the icecream shop where she works and had a good chat with Tito, a Park Ranger who helped me deciding my route through the lakes in the Parque Nacional Lanin for the next few days.
After a nice dinner, meeting a few more friends and sharing a few laughs, I had a good sleep and left early on Friday morning to cycle about 35km through the mountains to get to Lago Ruca Choroi, a lovely lake inside the National Park.
It was very hot and the gravel road was quite bad, with a few steep uphill bits.....I was happy to have left all my bags at Dina's place and to have come here just for the day.
When I arrived at the first camping on the lake's shore I met Hernan and Alena, the german cyclists I left the day before in Ñorquinco, we had a chat, ate a few of my nice buiscuits and then went our own ways, only to meet a few hours later (once again.....) in the icecream shop in Alumine.
I cycled to the end of the lake and after a quick swim and lunch on the beach I cycled back to Alumine, where I went to the supermarket to buy the ingredients to cook my hosts a nice Italian dinner, Linguine alla Carbonara and Penne with Bolognese sauce, a double pasta special.....
On Saturday, we all woke up very early to go to the Estancia for a hard day of work, I helped Jo to upload the van, went with him to buy bread and collect some wood for the fire from his girlfriend's Grandpa.
They had invited me for "La Marcacion", the day in which all the calves are ear tagged, branded, ear marked, castrated and vaccinated.
When we arrived at the Estancia we were joined by some of the guys working there, and the first part of the day was dedicated to separate the young calves from the cows, by literally running around the cows to push them in the right direction.
They were then all registered by number and age and vaccinated, some of them needed extra treatment because of an illness which affects their sight and so an injection into their eyes was applied by Jose.
My main job was to stick a steel straw into their mouths and give them a shot of a yellow liquid, a vaccine for the younger ones......(see picture in the Italian post)
After a quick break, in which some of the guys prepared the meat for lunch, we went back to work until all the cows had been vaccinated and only the calves were left inside the fence.
I also accepted the "macho" challenge from Jose to run on the cows backs from one side of the fence to the other, but didn't make it all the way....(see the picture in the Italian post), "never mind, you won...." said Jo "nobody here even accepted the challenge....).
We all sat around eating the lovely "Jabali y Chivo al asador", wild boar and goat meat prepared in the typical Gaucho way, tied to a steel cross and placed near a fire to cook for several hours.
It was a lovely, real coutryside meal and sharing lunch with these guys, making jokes and drinking all together made me feel like one of them, but soon after lunch, before anyone could fall asleep it was time to go back to work.
For the guys the best part of the day had come, they all picked up their "Lazos" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasso) and went inside the fence as the calves were freed a few at a time, showing off their skills as "domadores", the guys had to catch the calf with the lazo and then together with one or two others, try to push it down to the ground to be immobilized, so that the vaccines could be applied.
The calves also had to be branded, ear marked and ear tagged, registered and castrated, job that was only left to the experienced hands and knives of two of the older guys.
I helped the guys in all the jobs but the castration, and had a go with the lazo (but wasn't very good......), after a few hours I was really tired..... but happy and proud to have worked a full day in the Estancia, just like one of the guys.....for a day I really felt like a small Gaucho !!!!!
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