A Ranch Vacation for Every Taste : Ranches in South America are opening their bunkhouse doors to visitors.

They are sprinkled throughout the continent, these getaways for the adventurer longing to saddle up for a fantasy vacation as, perhaps, a Paraguayan gaucho, a Venezuelan llanero, an Argentine polo player or maybe even a Chilean horse breeder. A few of South America’s working ranches offer opportunities to do just that. For the hearty, an estancia in Paraguay and a cattle ranch in Venezuela offer opportunities for long days in the saddle rewarded by evenings under star-drenched skies. For those with more luxury on their minds, an Argentina ranch provides all of the comforts of an estate with polo as its chief attraction, and in Chile, guests stay in antique-filled rooms and dine sumptuously after toasting the day’s activities with Baccarat crystal.

One such ranch is tucked deep in the heart of South America--in Paraguay, a country with a large Guarani-speaking Indian population that is only just being discovered by foreigners other than Peace Corps workers and the odd Nazi war criminal. When the 35-year-long dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner fell in a bloody coup in 1989, this isolated land suddenly opened to a world of possibilities, including tourism.

That’s when the husband-and-wife team of French immigrants Marie-Laure and Jean-Paul Thole threw open the gates of their cattle ranch, Raya Uno, and invited guests to embrace the traditional gaucho lifestyle, with its long hours in the saddle rewarded by fragrant barbecue, nights under the stars and the enchanting music of Paraguayan harp.

The Thole ranch, called an estancia , is in the northeast corner of Paraguay, not far from the Brazilian border. Since many of the country’s roads are unpaved, a journey outside the capital can be an arduous trek. That’s why, on our trip last year, a friend and I flew to the ranch from the capital, Asuncion, on a small propeller plane of the military/domestic carrier TAM (Transporte Aereo Militar)--our only choice for air transport. Squeezed into the back near the parachute hatch for the hourlong flight, we gazed out over a seemingly endless expanse of red earth, crisscrossed by rivers.

Our plane landed on the dirt runway of the town of Concepcion, and we stepped out into the oven-like heat. One of the Raya Uno gauchos, Eugenio, shyly tipped his cowboy hat and swung our bags into a mud-encrusted Jeep.

The overland trek from Concepcion to the Thole estancia is a long one, but eager to see as much of the country as possible, we set off with Eugenio for six hours of rugged driving. Most visitors take an easier route--flying from Asuncion to the Brazilian border town of Pedro Juan Caballero. From there, the ranch is only 1 1/2 hours away by car.

At the mud-soup river known as Rio Ypane, Eugenio backed the Jeep over two blocks and onto a rickety wooden raft that was attached to a pole hooked over a thin wire, the only thing that prevented us from being swept downstream. A young boy punted us across. And somehow, we reached the Raya Uno gates at sundown.

Jean-Paul Thole manages three estancias , including Raya Uno, which he also owns. He dresses in cattle-country finery: a hand-embroidered white cotton shirt, broad-brimmed felt hat and boots and, in the cowboy tradition, he packs a pistol.

His 7,400-acre ranch herds more than 2,000 hump-backed, doe-faced zebu cattle introduced from India because they can tolerate intense heat. Their beef is exported to world markets.

The Tholes, who said they moved to Paraguay because they were weary of life in France and wanted an exotic venue, bought Raya Uno in 1985 from the squabbling heirs of a Paraguayan general.

Marie-Laure planted peach, apple, cherry and pear trees on the grounds where banana, pineapple, mandarin, melon, blueberries, strawberries, grapes and limes also thrive. Pink bougainvillea, flowering hibiscus and purple jacaranda inject color into the green landscape, which is home to toucans, ostriches, partridges, pheasants, road runners and parakeet owls that nest in holes in the ground.

A stone’s throw from the stately, one-story main house is the eight-room guest building. It’s dark, peaceful and as tidy as a monastery. The cool rooms have ceiling fans, private baths and shuttered windows. And from those windows you can gaze out upon what looks like open range on every side. It is actually all Raya Uno holdings, fenced in by more than 100 miles of barbed wire. The herd is tended by six hard-working gauchos whom, for several days, we trailed.

Pedro, the Raya Uno foreman, prepared our mounts in the customary gaucho style, cinching on hornless saddles of soft sheepskin with colorful macrame bindings. My friend, Mary, was unlucky to get Martin, a horse with a mind of its own--or, as the gauchos joked, no mind at all. Once, when crossing a creek, Martin waded into the deepest spot and wouldn’t budge. But for those who prefer not to saddle up, there is an option: horse-drawn carretas , wooden carts that keep the rider and the horse on friendly terms but separated.

In one corral, a trio of gauchos was roping calves. This was no exercise in machismo put on for tourists, but a part of daily chores. Each animal must be examined for wounds or signs of parasites or illness. Some must be vaccinated and others branded.

With skillful speed, the gauchos isolated and lassoed calves that were surprisingly swift on their gangly legs. But the cowboys got some trouble from a big bull with sharp horns and a prickly temper. He looked slow and unwieldy, but he slithered out of the lasso time and again, kicking up clouds of dust. He seemed to think it was great sport dodging the gauchos. In the end, they got him.

After sunbaked days, cool evenings were welcome and the night sky at remote Raya Uno arrived bursting with stars. Fireflies blinked around the asado , an open-pit barbecue where a gaucho manned the spit and fat from the roasting beef and pork sputtered onto glowing coals.

After our stay at Raya Uno, the Tholes drove us to the airstrip at Pedro Juan Caballero on the Brazilian border. Along the way we gasped at astonishing scenery, in particular the odd, camel-hump hills of Amambai, the country’s lone mountain range. The roads were lined with women balancing the day’s shopping on their heads and schoolchildren toting books.

At another cattle ranch--the sprawling Dona Barbara, owned by the Hugo Estrada family--I stayed on Venezuela’s central plain. Appropriately for a country of Wild West spirit, it is named for a lusty and ruthless heroine of Venezuelan literature, the fictional Dona Barbara, who was modeled after a real 19th-Century plains woman who outroped and outrode the best cowboys. And that woman, the real Pancha Vazquez, lived on the land that now comprises Dona Barbara.

For five generations, the Estrada clan has thrived on this plain--which, incidentally, is far from the site of the recent coup attempt centered in Caracas. In addition to ranching, patriarch Hugo Estrada has served in three Venezuelan administrations. Of his four children, only two--Francisco, 26, and Carmen, 33--have chosen to build their lives around the family ranch or hato , as it is called in these parts. Raised in Caracas and educated in the United States, they traded a cosmopolitan life for the countryside and say they aren’t looking back.

“This is the only family-owned ranch around because our generation doesn’t want to work here in the llanos,” said Francisco, a tall, deeply tanned man with a scar down his left cheek, referring to the central plains of Venezuela. “They want to go to the city. They don’t appreciate what they have.”

Theirs is an authentic working ranch. The Estradas herd nearly 5,000 head of Brahman cattle on 88,000 acres. They use no hormones in raising so-called “natural,” grass-fed beef. Helped by 75 hired hands, Francisco’s daily tasks include supervising the care of the herd, branding and milking, mending miles and miles of barbed-wire fence, fixing roads that are washed out by the rains and keeping cattle rustlers at bay.

The Estrada family has built a simple guest house on its property. All 20 rooms have private baths, but furnishings are sparse and guests may sleep in hammocks if they like. The food is plentiful with the hato’s own beef, queso llanero (a salty white cheese), home-grown vegetables and tropical fruits.

Guests can hike, go birding and boating or ride horses to the nearby sand dunes, where ceramics from an ancient nomadic Indian culture have been uncovered. They can even lend a hand with the chores.

I had come to Venezuela in late April, 1991, just at the start of the rainy season. Soon, most of the lower llanos would become flooded and virtually impassable and stay that way until November. That’s when wildlife is most active, but Venezuela’s central plain boasts an abundance of species even in the parched months.

On a boat trip down the Arauca River, we marveled at hoatzins--bizarre prehistoric birds whose young are born with claws on their wings--and brilliant blue macaws with crimson hoods. Llaneros never swim in these stingray- and electric eel-infested waters, but they do fish for footlong piranha--which are considered good eating.

In a small forest of spreading saman trees, we spotted a family of seven howler monkeys, their long tails coiled around the high branches. Hunched on nearby limbs were hundreds of vultures, biding their time in hopes of a tasty monkey morsel. At the forest edge, a white-tailed deer froze as a pair of auburn foxes stalked in the nearby fields of broom brush and indigo.

At night, Francisco described other mysteries of the llanos, such as the Llorona, a female spirit who cries to lonesome cowboys, and the odd little flames that follow you but vanish when you shout.

The many legends of the llanos are haunting. But the reason most visitors venture to the realm of the cowboy, just an hour’s plane ride south of the capital, Caracas, is the fantastic wildlife. During my visit, I went bird-watching with a small group of U.S. naturalists. One afternoon as we were rolling down an endless highway in the Estrada family’s van, blasts of hot air from the open windows hitting us like punches, the radio blared a ballad about a man who was milking a cow and dreaming of his sweetheart. Suddenly, our driver slammed on the brakes.

“Over there,” whispered Jose Luis Rodriguez, our Venezuelan guide. He pointed to a water hole shimmering like a mirage 50 yards from the roadside. When a Texan woman named Dottie passed me her $1,000 binoculars, a world I’d only glimpsed before in National Geographic documentaries sprang to life: a flock of brilliant scarlet ibis, perched on twigs for legs; lazy caimans, South American cousins of the alligator, and capybaras, the world’s largest rodent.

The U.S. bird-watchers were ticking off 100 species a day. Jose Luis pointed out maguari storks, yellow-billed terns, lilly trotters, jacanas. Solemnly, Dottie directed our gaze to a pair of large, stork-like creatures. “The jabiru is endangered all over the world,” she said in a hushed voice. “What you see here is a privilege.”

The day I left Dona Barbara, the bird-watchers were all atwitter. They were in the field at 5 a.m., as usual, when Carmen showed up with coffee on a silver tray. In the typical modest manner of the plains, she simply shrugged off the early morning indulgence. “Well, I promised you morning coffee,” she said.

On the three-hour ride to the airport at San Fernando de Apure, where I would catch a flight back to Caracas, our Jeep stalled in a gaping rut. While the driver toiled under the hood, I was possessed by my first real feeling of loneliness in a land of big sky and boundless horizon. It was then that I understood why the llaneros’ songs seem permeated with yearning.

Raya Uno and Dona Barbara are grand adventures, but they aren’t for everybody. If you visit a South American ranch, you’ll be treated with every courtesy possible, but remember, these are not resorts. However, some very refined ranches do exist.

One is La Martina in Argentina. Less than an hour’s drive from downtown Buenos Aires, this comfortable estate offers a swimming pool, paddle and tennis courts and a chauffeured limousine at your disposal for shopping trips in town. And the comfortable guest manor has six double rooms boasting four-poster beds and private baths. The toughest challenge here is the ritual afternoon of chukkers on their regulation-size polo fields. You don’t have to be an accomplished polo player to enjoy La Martina, but most guests have experience and a commitment to the sport. All of the resident instructors are noted polo champions.

Another property that is plump with luxury is Chile’s historic Hacienda Los Lingues, a member of the exclusive Relais & Chateau chain. Located in a lush valley 80 miles from the capital of Santiago, this hacienda exports 100,000 crates of fruit annually and breeds Aculeo horses, cousins of the Lippizaner. The estate land was granted in 1540 by the Spanish crown to the first mayor of Santiago. Guests are lodged in a dozen antique-filled rooms and suites, and dine (dressed formally, of course) on gourmet dishes at a table set with Baccarat crystal and 19th-Century European china. You can ride horses, visit the hacienda museum, sit in on chamber music concerts or just pretend to be a country squire or a lady of leisure.

Whether your idea of a ranch vacation means hitting the trails or relaxing at a polo match; whether you’re wild about birds or mad about purebred horses, South America’s ranches are rich with pleasures.

GUIDEBOOK

Ranches in South America

Paraguay: Estancia Raya Uno

Contact Marie-Laure Thole at Consultour, Box 1324, Asuncion, Paraguay; telephone from the United States, 011-595-21-604274; fax, 011-595-21-609831. Prices for lodging and all meals start at about $85 daily per person, double occupancy. The single-room supplement is $30. Consultour also offers a seven-day package from Asuncion starting at $890 per person, and a two-day extension to Iguacu Falls starting at $280. Also available is a four-day extension to Rio de Janeiro.

Venezuela: Hato Dona Barbara

The U.S. representative is Lost World Adventures, 1189 Autumn Ridge Drive, Marietta, Ga. 30066, (800) 999-0558 or (404) 971-8586; fax, (404) 977-3095. Packages from San Fernando de Apure in Venezuela start at $430 per person, double occupancy, for four days/three nights, and $540 per person for five days and four nights, including local transfers, all meals and guided tours. The single-room supplement is $60.

Argentina: La Martina Polo Ranch

The U.S. representative is Wolfe Travel, Ltd., 101 Tremont St., Boston, Mass. 02108, (617) 367-8300. Prices start at $320 per person, per day, including all meals and polo instruction.

Chile: Hacienda Los Lingues

For information, call Relais & Chateaux at (800) 677-3524. Rates start at $159.60 plus 18% tax per room per day; suites start at $320 plus tax. Meals are additional but include wine. Lunch is $38.80 plus tax; dinner, $47.16 plus tax.