Argentine farm life

A week end trip of full immersion in farm life is very welcome during my stay in Buenos Aires. Agus and I travel all night by train to Bahia Blanca, a city on the edge of the capital’s state. Here we meet my uncle Rodrigo and drive to the village of Cabildo along an off-track road, admiring the wilderness, arriving late for the asado (grill) lunch at the neighbour’s. In a dark farm shed, sitting on buckets, using a plank of wood as a table we have lunch with the few boys that my uncle and his friend share as workforce on their land, listening to crop plans and ideas to increase biodiversity on the olive plantations. With our bellies full of salad and grilled peppers with eggs, Agus and I walk around the baby olive trees. I notice wild rucola growing across the field and nip on some leaves before we both fell asleep in the middle of the field, nursed by the fresh wind under the elusive sun.

Rodrigo wakes our burned faces and drives them to his own farm, first thing’s first: MATE. Then, we explore the premises, finding wonderful wildlife. The week-end blows past, coherent with the local rythms, we clean the semi-abandoned farm house and paint the Australian water tank, taking long lunch breaks with the farmers of the cooperative, remembering to drink mate and to get tipsy in the evening. We bring a small rucola revolution to the land where no man would ever consider a meal as such without meat on the grill, as the farmers watch us pick their grass and eat it with tomatoes and olive oil. Their machinist nature works against our eagerness to work on the fields, our wonderful tank painting causes the jealousies of the funny old man who has been working at the project for the past year.

The evening we leave we make a detour via the valley town of Sierra de la Ventana, to buy cheese and craft beer in the small shop Regionales La Rueda, then take turns all night until we find dawn over Buenos Aires.