El Charabon (Uruguay) March 19 - March 26

We arrived on Friday afternoon, just as the heavens opened.  We were expecting a fairly grand estancia….we were mistaken.  We drove past the first gate – just wide enough to drive a car through, but with no driveway beyond – only grass.  “that can’t be the main entrance” I said.  50 yards further on, we came to a second entrance with no gate and drove in to a small yard with tractor sheds on one side and what looked like a staff accommodation block on the other with a fairly basic communal dining area in front.  There was no life in sight.  I stopped the car and walked in the rain up a concrete footpath into the main house where I found a couple of staff members, who then showed us to a rather tired, small room with virtually no cupboard space (we now had 10 items of luggage!), where the 3 of us were meant to sleep.

To cut a long story short, we were not happy and were subsequently shown several other rooms, marginally better than the first, the largest of which we eventually opted for.  The rooms however are pretty basic, dated and the whole place is a bit tired  The fact that it continued to pour all night didn’t help, with the rain splattering on our corrugated iron roof above.  Yet again, we were the only guests staying, so no one to help alleviate our gloom.  So, this was our first impression.  

The next day things then got substantially better, starting with the weather.  We were introduced to our wonderful Gaucho guide, Alejandro and to his 11 year old son, Antoni.  

Alejandro immediately took a big shine to Philippa, but even more to Jemima, with whom he developed a very special relationship over the next 5 days.  Likewise did his son Antoni.  

Coffee, Mima's best horse EVER!!

Our horses were superb – in fact, they seem to have gotten better and better with every successive estancia.   Alejandro very quickly gave us free rein to go at whatever pace we wished, so rides with him were immensely fun.  

On Day 1, Philippa was on an ex race horse, and much of the ride was spent at a flat out gallop.  That horse was unbeatable, but on day 2 she asked for a horse that was a tiny bit less exhausting, and then Jemima and James were in with a chance.  Most of our races ended up neck & neck but on two occasions Jemima won!

Mima milking the cow

Alejandro was in charge of the 2000 acre estate and all the livestock.  On our request, he involved us in his day-to-day duties, such as rounding-up and counting cattle and sheep and then moving them on to new pastures; one day we challenged Jemima to wrangle one herd of cattle entirely on her own; she had the help of a dog but still no mean feat.  On the milking front, Jemima got it first time, but James, much to the amusement of all and despite his claiming he knew exactly how to do it, extracted not ONE drop!!

Jemima's maths lesson on the terrace

With the gorgeous weather that followed that first day, the charm of the place grew on us.  The countryside was just like that of the South Downs…but without the rain.  The staff were all delightful, (although of course none spoke a word of english) and the food not bad at all.

  

Drinks with Graciela & George

After a couple of days, the delightful owners, George and Graciela, departed for Montevideo (where George is an eminent anaesthetist at the British Hospital).Having not expected Philippa’s Spanish to be as good as it now is,  and concerned for our ability to communicate post their departure, they had booked an english- speaking woman to come and look after us – an attractive 28 year old architect called Leticia Gonnet who spoke excellent English and was an accomplished rider.

Pip & Leticia

Leticia took us on a couple of excellent excursions.  The first was to Cabo Polonia, an amazing, totally isolated fishing village-turned-tourist attraction, some 45km away.  

Our truck!!

 The village is only accessible by 4-wheel drive and is in a National Reserve (so you have to pay).  There are no formal roads to it, or in it and the approach is in a beaten up truck, through sand dunes and along the most beautiful beach yet - and totally deserted.

The best beach in the world

Coffee on the beach

What a wonderful place to chill for a couple of days – Latin America’s answer to the Thai beaches where they host the full moon parties.  Philippa said she could easily live her and turn hippy, earning a living playing the guitar - until she learnt of the constraints in sanitation!

Cool or wot?

There we were lucky enough to spot sea lions and seals and spent a wonderful few hours exploring.

On another afternoon, Leticia took us (and we took Antoni) to the Ombu Forrest: a unique species of what look like trees, but are in fact plants as they have no growth circles in the trunks or branches, but are made of what is effectively layers and layers of 'paper' that you can just crush in your hand; they are extraordinary!  

This reserve is preserved with huge dedication, and new specimens are carefully planted and nurtured every year.  The ones you can see in this photo are the few survivors - they are probably 200 to 400 years old, but nobody knows....

Access is only via boat, since the forest lies on the edge of a 12,000 hectar lagoon, surrounded by wetlands.  Our overriding memory (or mine al least) was being bitten by hundreds of mosquitoes, which clearly thrive in that warm, moist environment.

Antoni and Mima

One other notable event was going to the annual horse auctions at the local town of La Rocha.  There must have been the best part of a thousand horses there – some broken, others wild, (as in not broken in).  Some were due for immediate dispatch to the food industry (Princess Ann would approve), others were due a longer life in one form of work or another.

A horse being auctioned

What we found most striking, was that we saw some beautiful animals being sold at ridiculous prices.  Alejandro bought a good-looking foal for about 80 pounds.  Other – trained horses – were only fetching 300 to 500 pounds!  The foal was bought for Antoni and they named him Mimo, the male version of Mima, after you-know-who.  The afternoon was capped when we fitted out Jemima with her own Gaucho outfit!

Our departure from El Charabon was bitter-sweet:  Alejandro, Philippa, Anthoni and Jemima had all bonded to such an extent that the departure was highly emotional, and tears flowed from all parties.  Alejandro has 5 children – all boys – and Jemima is the daughter he wishes he was able to have.  He was hugely drawn to her determined and gutsy personality, and said it was extraordinary to find a child with her talent for riding and her empathy with horses, who was not from a Gaucho family where children are effectively born into the saddle.

Antoni, his youngest, a little Mowgli like character, who can jump on a full size horse from the ground and ride it bareback holding only the mane, is a divinely gentle, good-looking and sweet-natured kid.  Through their common love of animals, he and Jemima formed a deep friendship, despite their inability to speak the same language, and they too had a tearful farewell at the end.  In summary, what could have been a disaster, turned out to be a great experience!

José Ignacio, March 14 to March 21

Our trip from Bariloche to Punte del Este was not without incident.  An initial 40 minute delay into Buenos Aires was then followed by another 40 minute delay into Punte, where we then sat on the runway for the best part of an hour, waiting for a damn bus to take us the 100 yards to the terminal – it is not as if this is the busiest airport in the world!  Meanwhile, its tipping it down outside.  When we finally get to baggage reclaim, we discover that the suitcases had been offloaded promptly, left uncovered on the tarmac and were now soaked.

We finally arrived at our destination (a lovely 3 bedroomed house 45 minutes from the airport), at 10:30pm, in the pouring rain, tired and fed up.  We opened our cases and, as we suspected, much of the contents were soaking wet.  After a piece of toast (as we had had no supper), we were just about to get ready for bed when the power went.  In pitch black we groped around a house we didn’t know trying to find candles.  In the end Philippa’s contact lenses came out by the light of James iPhone and we called it a day! It was not a good moment!

THe house was well equipped

The following day we awoke, drew the curtains and found that we had the most wonderful, unobstructed view of the Atlantic, not more than 75 metres from our terrace.

View from our bed

Breakfast and lunch area

José Ignacio is a strange little town, mounted on a promontory which extends into the sea.  Once a small fishing village, it has now become (from mid December till mid January) the Saint Tropez of this part of the world, with movie stars, singers and anyone with a Porsche desperate to be seen in its restaurants or on its beaches.  

Map of Jose Ignacio

In high season (which extends till mid February), the place is humming, and with the amount of money coming here, you would imagine that everything would be immaculate – the buildings, roads, services etc.  You would be wrong; the community has been very keen to retain its rustic feel, so no one is allowed to build above a certain height and there are no swanky apartment blocks, the streets are decrepit, and in fact, the place looks a bit of a dump. However land and properties change hands at extortionate prices!!

Does this look like St Tropez?

View from our room

Almacen El Palmar

Unfortunately, by early March, 90% of the restaurants are closed for their winter and we were limited to a couple of restaurants, both of which (fortunately) we were happy to eat at at any time.  One (Almacén El Palmar) is run by a well-known and highly entertaining French chef, Jean Paul Bondoux, and it became our coffee shop of preference.  The other, La Huella, is the be-all and end-all of beach restaurants, where we had several superb lunches and dinners.

La Huella

Lunch at La Huella

The beaches and scenery generally are lovely, and the sunsets spectacular!

Despite the ghost-town feel to the place, there were a couple of wonderful surprises.  On our first day, we were in the local supermarket buying food for the house, when Philippa stopped a good-looking young guy to ask about where to buy meat...as one does.  A general conversation ensued with his girlfriend coming up and me then joining in.  It transpired that they were getting married later that afternoon and, in a bout of spontaneity, they invited us to come to the party.  We took this to mean the reception.  We hadn’t exactly packed for a wedding, but at 7:30pm we rocked up at the ‘Laguna Escondida’ (hidden lagoon) about 2 miles outside Jose Ignacio.  

Scrub-up well

What a fabulous place – purpose built to host society weddings, large corporate events etc.  It overlooks – surprise surprise – a lagoon and to cap it all, there was a full moon.

Philippa and Jemima with Horacio - the groom...

 The set up was nothing short of dreamy.  The atmosphere was all-the-better because it had been windy, pouring with rain all day until about 4:00pm, and now all was calm, clear and warm - a good omen.

and with Maria Eugenia - the bride....

Around 200 very glamorous people from Brazil and Argentina were there, but much to our surprise, they were only serving soft drinks.  Very un-Brazilian.  When we saw the alter set up on a suspended platform over the water, it suddenly dawned on us that we were not there for the reception, but for the wedding itself!

..and with Mario and Vera, Dad and Step Mother

It was a beautiful (and thankfully short) service and we recognised many of the same readings and ritual as we have in UK.  Muddling through with a combination of Italian, Spanish and French, Philippa became good friends in an amazingly short time with the grooms Father and Stepmother, whilst Jemima played hide-and-seek with a nephew and niece of the groom and the rest of us danced to a live band.  

Finally, at about 10:30, everyone went to sit down for a formal dinner!  At this point, having drunk a fair amount of champagne and at risk of overstaying our welcome, we decided to go.  The groom’s sister then implored us to stay, telling us that there were places on the Family table and that we would be most welcome.  How kind was that? People here generally seem to be so much more receptive to an unsolicited approach, the likes of which would rarely happen in the UK!  We are due to have dinner with the bride and groom on our one remaining Saturday night Buenos Aires in a few days time.

The second event was catalysed by an email Philippa received, telling her that an old school alumna, who has spent months cooking on a luxury motor yacht, was due to be putting into Montevideo (160 KM away) having just completed 5 crossings of the Drake Channel (stretch of water between Cape Horn and Antarctica – very rough).  Contact was made.  Due however to a lack of space in Montevideo, the boat diverted to Punta del Este (25 km away) and a plan was hatched to meet up. 

Reunion after 35 years

The following day we drove to the harbour, found the yacht and a reunion, after 35 years, took place between Philippa and Belinda Brewin – the ‘little miss naughty’ of the class of ’80.  God she was funny!

We had a hysterical 24 hours with Belinda, who only seems to drink champagne and neat Tequila. We were blessed with glorious weather – so lunch on the beach at La Huella was followed by mucking about in the waves, and then dinner back at the house.  

Sorry Belinda,  I did say this was one for the blog!

 

Belinda never drew breath, regaling us with story after story about her crazy life since leaving New Hall (‘prematurely’!) in 1977.

From dating rock-stars (“everyone is entitled to one piece of rough in their lives, and this is definitely yours” - her father’s words when introduced to one of them), marriage, children, divorce, money, murder (principal witness in a


horrific quadruple murder which had her in court for over a year giving evidence, and in the process screwing up her life), big house, no house, destitution, getting a grip, some good luck and so on…. she even wrote a book to pay the bills  ‘Trouble Brewin’.  It was a really fun and interesting 24 hours, for much of which Jemima’s eyes were out on stalks, and we will be seeing her soon in London before she re-joins her yacht in Majorca.

We have fond memories of Jose Ignacio, its wonderful views...

 ....Sandy beaches, rustic nature......and would definitely return.  

Beach at Jose Ignacio

Next stop – El Charabon, an estancia about 45 minutes away….