McGinnis Adventures: Atlanta to Atlántida : Estancia Panagea

Marilyn, March 26, 2015

We've had some pretty amazing experiences in Uruguay so far, but this week's just might top them all. Teo, Javy, and I spent three days at a wonderful place called Estancia Panagea. Our friends the Gimnig family, who visited us last month, discovered it and highly recommended it to us after their stay there. It turned out to be all they had promised and more.

Estancias are large ranches, and in the pampas of Uruguay and Argentina, are usually home to herds of cattle and sheep, and also homes to their herders, the gauchos (and sometimes gauchas). Estancia Panagea is a working ranch that welcomes visitors to come and spend a few days, joining in as much of the work as they choose. Panagea's owner, Juan Manuel, is a third-generation rancher, as well as a veterinarian. He's also a great teacher, travel advisor, and armchair philosopher. He and the gaucho who works for him, Bilingua (so nicknamed because he speaks both Spanish and Portuguese), possess what must be a pretty unusual set of skills that enable them to both run a productive and profitable ranch, and at the same time cheerfully shepherd a bunch of novices through all the work that the ranch demands. Bilingua's wife works as the cook, serving up hearty meals of gaucho food, including rich mutton stews and savory rice dishes. Juan's family also lives at the estancia, although we did not have the pleasure of meeting them, since they were traveling.

From all we had heard and read, we were anticipating a great experience at Panagea. What we could not have anticipated was our luck in being there at the same time as another visitor, Elin, a mechanical engineer and adventurer from Sweden. Her visit to Panagea came in the middle of a several-week trek across South America. She was wonderful, genuinely enjoying my boys and their antics, and happy to share her considerable horse knowledge with us greenhorns. We bonded quickly and shared meaningful conversation over meals and magical moments taking in all the estancia had to offer.

Our guesthouse, painted with the flags of previous guests' home countries

Our journey started on Monday afternoon with a 5-hour bus ride straight north from Montevideo to Tacaruarembó. Elin was on the same bus, sitting a couple rows ahead of us, but of course at that point we didn't know we'd be spending the next few days with her. Juan met us at the bus station, loaded us and our luggage into his truck, and drove us another hour into the countryside to reach Panagea. The sun was setting in all its gold and pink glory as we drove through the vast, empty grasslands, giving us a glimpse of the wonder that awaited us. We arrived at Pangea with a bit of daylight to spare, and were able to settle into our simple and comfortable rooms before supper. Juan joined us for the meal, and we all enjoyed getting to know each other, sharing travel experiences, talking politics, and exchanging perspectives on the world.

Even though the boys and I have read in our Uruguayan history book about the electrification of the campo or countryside years ago, such progress has not yet extended as far as Panagea. Electricity is available only for a few hours each evening, when the generator is turned on. Juan let us know that it would turn off at 10 p.m. sharp, with no warning given. Teo and Javy and I snuggled into our beds and began our bedtime reading (Secret of the Andes, in preparation for our trip to Cusco next month), and all of a sudden, in the middle of a paragraph, the lights went out and all of us were surprised by how very, very dark it was. We opted not to light the candles that were provided for us, and instead let the darkness and sleep overtake us.

After breakfast the next morning, we met Juan and Bilingua in the corral and were assigned our horses. With 74 horses to choose from, Juan has a horse appropriate for just about any rider, I imagine. I was given Rebelde ("Rebel"), Javy rode Infierno, and Teo was matched with Tormenta. Although their names were not very reassuring, they turned out to be gentle and patient animals, and we gained confidence as we rode across the grassland, following Juan and Bilingua to the paddocks where we would round up 300 of the ranch's 1800 sheep. Javy shares his thoughts on riding the horses here, and Teo has written more about our morning herding and vaccinating the sheep here.

Juan helps Javy get situated on his horse, Infierno

Midday is lunch and siesta time at the estancia, and we enjoyed relaxing in the hammocks that Juan hung for us in the trees near the house. In the afternoon, we saddled up new horses, giving the morning horses a break, and, per Juan's protocol, allowing us to get broader experience by riding different animals. After escorting the sheep back to their field, our next task was to bring in 200 of the 1100 cattle. The cattle proved to be more cantankerous than the sheep, and required a lot of whooping and hollering as we rounded them up. Not surprisingly, Teo and Javy turned out to be pretty good whoopers and hollerers.

After an hour or so of herding, we had them all back at the corral, and we guided them into a large holding pen. Next, Bilingua gave the boys flags made of long sticks with white bags tied to the ends. He had them help divide the herd into smaller groups, and then, with much flag waving and prodding, drive one group at a time into a smaller holding area. Additional whooping and hollering was involved. From that smaller area, eight or so cows at a time were led, pushed, prodded, shoved into a narrow chute where they would be more or less immobile and Juan could tag the ears of the young ones and castrate the male calves. Javy and Teo assisted by handing Juan the tags. Elin's job was to open and close the gate at the end of the chute as each cow was released, to allow access to one field or another, thereby sorting them and isolating a couple of older cows, who we later escorted to the old cow retirement field.

Tagging a calf's ear

Elin as gatekeeper

After a hard day's work, we enjoyed another delicious dinner and pleasant conversation. The boys took advantage of the evening's electricity and watched some Spanish cartoons on television. We got to bed with enough time to do some more reading, but before we had gotten through many pages, Javy was sound asleep. Too tired to get up and turn the lights out, I decided I'd just wait for them to go out on their own, but I was out before the lights were.

Wednesday was much like Tuesday, except that we felt a little more experienced and confident with the riding and the work. We were with cows all day, rounding them up, assisting with vaccination, bringing in mother cows with their calves, separating out young males that would be sold, helping with blood tests, and watching Juan check a few cows for pregnancy. He did this by inserting his gloved arm up to his shoulder into the cow's rectum and feeling for a fetus. Needless to say, this was a fascinating procedure for the boys to witness. We also painted a stripe on the backs of the cows that Juan planned to sell, and watched a bit squeamishly as he cut the horns off of one calf.

Painting cows

Our last job of the day was to escort some of the cows back to their new paddock. With that task completed, Elin, Teo, Javy, and I hurried our horses to a rise on the other side of the property to view the sunset. It was so peaceful, so breathtakingly beautiful, that it will be awhile before I can watch another sunset and not feel a bit of a longing to be back there on that little hill, overlooking the grazing sheep, waiting for the quiet, starry nighttime to descend.

Teo took this beautiful photo of Elin at sunset

Thursday morning's job was to scour a very large and hilly field for the dozen or so horses who were running free there, and to escort them back to the corral so that they could begin their work shift and relieve those that had been ridden the past several days. They knew the routine and came obediently enough. When we later saddled them up and began riding, though, it seemed that they were having a bit of trouble transitioning into their workweek, maybe like many of us feel on Monday morning after a weekend free of restraint. My horse in particular seemed to have its own idea of where it wanted to go, but I eventually got it to follow my directions, and felt pretty good about that accomplishment. Mother cows and their male calves needed to be rounded up, but what with our wandering horses and our inability to confidently distinguish the male calves from the female ones, we weren't much help. Mostly we just enjoyed being out on the range on a beautiful morning while Juan, Bilingua, and Tarzan the dog did all the real work.

Over our last lunch together, Elin and I exchanged contact information and talked about future travel plans, then we loaded into Juan's van to return to the bus station. We arrived just in time for the boys and me to catch the next double-decker bus to Montevideo, and with an extra stroke of luck, were assigned the front seats on the top level, just where they had hoped we'd be. Though eager to get home and to see Gene, we all felt a little melancholy as the bus pulled out of the station, a little sad to say goodbye to new friends and to end such a marvellous adventure. Maybe we'll just have to go back!