January 12, 2013
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Roberto, our guide on the left and Sebastian (“El Moro”) on the right leaning against the 1962 Ford Falcon built in 1980.. |
Hopping into Roberto’s 1962 Ford Falcon wagon that was built in 1980 and featured a jagged hole in the floor that accommodated the stick shift that replaced the car’s original three-in-the-tree gear shift, we simultaneously figured that buying a few horses was less risky than relying on the Falcon’s brakes. Roberto pushed my faith further when he whispered a prayer before turning the key in the ignition. I’m not sure whether he was praying that his Falcon would start or that it would get us safely to where we were headed. But after meeting Sebastian, a Mapuche who runs El Bolson’s most successful horseback riding business, something known in Argentina as cabalgatas, maybe Roberto was actually asking God to keep us safe from someone who was a caricature of a horse trader. Devilish in his red beret, the chosen headgear of Patagonia’s gauchos, Sebastian had us break bread – really several legs of delicious lamb that he’d been slowly grilling over an open fire – before showing us the horses he had for sale. Seated at a roughly hewn picnic table at the side of Ruta 40, Argentina’s version of the Trans Canada Highway, we were blasted with questions and jokes. They exploded from Sebastian and his pals with the good-natured intensity of a gigolo on the prowl.
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Gauchito, one of the four horses we purchased, not looking very happy about it. |
With our trusted advisor’s endorsement, we agreed to do the deal with Sebastian. We were unable to get him to drop his price, but he was willing to put on new shoes all around, inoculate our mounts and look after them until our adventure began. Feeling like drug dealers, but unwilling to question our trust in Roberto, Alex looked both ways before pulling his thick wad of money out of his front pocket. He then peeled off 120 one-hundred pesos bills as we leaned against Roberto’s dilapidated 1962 Ford Falcon at the side of a dirt road, shaded from the hot sun by an enormous hardwood tree.