RIDING HIGH IN ARGENTINA

Down in Argentina they have cowboys too, except they call them gauchos. Quiet, fiercely independent men of the Andes Mountains and Argentina’s prairies, they’re the stuff of myth and folklore. Many South American history books depict their hearty manners, their isolated lifestyle and their picturesque attire: the baggy khakis they wear called bombachas, their broad-rimmed Zorro-like hats and the finely woven ponchos they wear while astride sturdy horses.

Several years ago I made my first trip to Argentina, not so much in the hopes of seeing gauchos as to see the country. But I was eager to head out into the Andes and do something athletic. So while I stayed in Buenos Aires with the family of a close friend, they suggested I take a horseback trip called a cabalgata up into the Andes. They recommended a Buenos Aires travel firm called Feeling Turismo, which specializes in such pack trips.

At the agency’s office I looked over their brochures (in Spanish, although some of Feeling’s staff speak English) and saw pictures of city folk like me--singles, couples and families--on horseback, wearing ponchos and gaucho-esque broad-brimmed hats, perched at the edge of jagged cliffs with vast snowcapped peaks and verdant valleys beyond. The agents mentioned that this was no cushy bed-and-breakfast vacation. Everyone sleeps on the ground, and nights in the Andes are cold. I’d need a sleeping bag, which they could provide, a hat for the sun (and to look cool in pictures), a winter parka, sweaters and riding boots. A poncho and bombachas were optional but highly recommended, and easily found in Buenos Aires.

The unbelievable price for five days of riding in the mountains, followed by a day of cave exploring and a day of rafting, was about $500. Although I’d ridden horses only a dozen times, I eagerly handed over my credit card. The experience that followed was everything Feeling Turismo said it would be. It was so good, in fact, that on a return trip to Argentina last February I decided to do it again.

My first destination was San Rafael, a provincial city about 600 miles west of Buenos Aires, near the foothills of the Andes and close to Chile. It’s a 15-hour overnight bus journey or a two-hour flight from Buenos Aires that Feeling Turismo can help arrange for an extra fee. Or you can take a bus from Santiago, Chile, to San Rafael, which I did last year and found to be shorter and cheaper (10 hours and $28 one way).

A second bus connection from San Rafael headed southwest to the village of Los Molles, set in the foothills of the Argentine Andes. In Los Molles I stayed overnight at the Hotel Hualum. The hotel stay was part of Feeling’s tour package, and it’s here that the horse packing group gathers and you meet some of the crew--two 20-ish guias, or guides, who help take care of the guests, from cooking meals to saddling up. The guides also back up the two chief horsemen, modern-day gauchos who own the horses and would meet us the next day deep in the mountains.

After we’d taken some time to admire the sloping Andean valley that surrounds the hotel, the guides suggested they help me repack my gear--I’d brought too many clothes. All personal items must fit into two saddlebags, which meant three shirts instead of five, two rather than three sweaters and so on. I left the rest in another bag until our group returned.

Feeling’s horseback tours consist of 12 to 20 people matched by age, and Feeling told me they’ve had travelers as old as 70. Being in my 30s, I was placed in a 20-to-40 singles/couples group, all Argentines. As a Spanish speaker, this was fine for me, but many Argentines spoke English and most of them were dying to practice throughout the trip.

The next day our group grabbed saddle- and sleeping bags and loaded them onto a dusty, beat-up van that took us higher into the mountains--5,000 or 6,000 feet--where the gauchos and horses were waiting. As the chain-smoking driver steered the van away from the hotel and out along twisty mountain roads that graduated from asphalt to dirt, the Andes towered and crowded higher around the bus with each passing minute. The group’s animated chatter died down, replaced by silence and clicking cameras, for the Andes humble you with their majesty. And in this part of Argentina, the land is unspoiled; few tourists make it out here.

An hour before sunset the bus reached the drop-off point, the Valle Hermoso, a vast, crater-like plain surrounded by snowcapped peaks. We stopped at an abandoned guard station where two lanky horsemen, wearing black brimmed hats and baggy bombachas, were waiting, with a corral filled with stunning white and chestnut horses. After a cordial greeting, our horsemen, Gaspar and Fabian, helped the group unload the huge stash of riding and cooking gear from the van.

A jovial mood presided. It all felt like adult camp for yuppie rough riders. One of my worried colleagues asked what would happen if someone got sick or injured in this remote spot, and our guides assured us we’d never be more than two hours’ ride from the nearest town.

As night closed in, we made our beds and gathered around a fire. The air had turned chilly by then, and everyone donned gloves, sweaters and ponchos. We crowded tightly around the flames and, these being Argentines, laughter and banter soon started up amid the passing of the mate gourd--a bitter herbal tea often sweetened with sugar. As we continued to chat, what soon became clear was the diversity of the group: secretaries, import/export salesmen, bankers, truck drivers, grad students.

After a good night’s sleep, I lay for a while in the morning admiring the wide expanse of land until Rama and Peter, our guides, urged me out of my sleeping bag. I headed down to a stream--a tributary that flows down from the glaciers visible above--and dipped my tin cup into the frigid water.

I returned for breakfast, which is as pared down as it gets: mate or instant coffee with saltines and jam. By 10 a.m. everyone headed down to the corral for the much-anticipated choosing of our mounts. As we gathered around, the horsemen roped in horses one by one and offered them to the nearest traveler. An hour later, the group was mounted and pack mules were loaded with crates of cookware and extra riding gear. Sitting comfortably atop our saddles, we all surveyed the enormous landscape before us. We spent about six hours riding for each of the next five days.

Following Gaspar’s lead, we rode across the Valle Hermoso for nearly three hours, walking and occasionally cantering and galloping. We forded two rivers, the water reaching right up to our boot heels, which provoked some laughter. As we continued we constantly snapped pictures as if we feared the beauty of this land could not get more spectacular. How wrong we were. For five days the scenery never let up.

On the first day, by midafternoon we headed out of the Valle Hermoso and up a wide side canyon, where we reached a scattering of boulders. There we stopped for lunch. The guides unloaded a crate of food and spread out a tarp for us to eat on. A few of us walked down to a river to wash the dust off our faces and refill our canteens; then we all settled in for the midday meal.

This was certainly more substantial than breakfast: chicken-fried steak, bread and canned fruit. If you didn’t care for water, they also had Tang or wine. Afterward, everyone lay back and soaked up the sun and the balmy air, noticing that there were few mosquitoes to harass us--an unexpected benefit of the 10,000-foot altitude. It was pure bliss.

Half an hour later, the guides packed the mules and readjusted our saddles--a thrice-daily ritual. Our troop then sallied on again in single file behind Fabian, heading up along dusty ridges toward the glaciers above. Many of us donned light sweaters, for as we moved higher it became quite cool compared with the warm valleys. I’d brought a poncho and found it to be effective against wind, cold and dust.

By now I began to feel mild soreness in my legs, but it soon went away. The beauty and the fun company had a lot do to with it. Then, too, I think your body knows what it’s in for on these trips, so after some early complaining it just puts up and shuts up.

An hour and a half before nightfall, we dismounted at our first campsite, a sloping ridge halfway between the green valleys below and the white glaciers above. Reaching the glaciers and actually crossing over them on horseback would be the next day’s journey. It was windy and briskly cool--it fell into the mid-40s by nightfall--and as we arranged our comfy bedding, on went the winter clothes again. As it had the night before, the warm campfire became the gathering spot, and mate was passed around as our guides slapped fresh chicken breasts on a grill; a black iron pot on the side cooked the rice. After seven hours of casual riding without snacks, that meal was delicious, and I cleaned my plate. (We had two vegetarians in our group, and the guides prepared special meals for them.)

After dinner everyone remained around the fire for talking, drinking and spontaneous entertainment. When they get going, Argentines are some of the most fun people in the world. One of my travel mates brought out a guitar that first night, which I seconded with a harmonica, and together, with clapping and singing from the others, we got a jig going, which led into other songs.

On the following night--after we’d feasted on an entire goat that Gaspar and Fabian had grilled over a wood fire--another travel mate recited a 19th century poem about a poor gaucho and his ill-fated dog, which took 10 minutes to relate and brought tears to many eyes. Some time after, the guitar came out again, along with South American brandy, and the whole group was soon dancing with hands in the air and voices wailing, “Ay, ay, ay!” Then the music turned into games, the men against the women in a round of limericks--with each limerick roasting the other sex. The more brandy consumed, the wittier and cruder the poems became, with each group endeavoring to top the other’s rhymes.

The next days followed the pattern of the first, with a few surprises. One afternoon found us cornered by a summer squall, rare in this mostly arid region. To avoid the brunt of it we had to ride briskly down a canyon amid rain, hail, thunder and lightning.

Another day we dismounted on a high plain, then climbed on foot for 20 minutes to a patch of glacier where an iron marker stood at the border between Chile and Argentina. Standing at about 11,000 feet, we felt as if we were looking over the roof of the world. Later that day we ran into the Argentine border patrol, three men on horses, who stopped to have mate with us and share their tales of contraband drugs and electronics.

The only time I got woozy from altitude sickness was the day we all decided to pose for a class picture standing on our horses. Unfortunately, the prospect of standing balanced on my horse induced five minutes of nausea--which happily faded as I sat down and caught my breath.

But perhaps the most memorable incident happened on the last day, when a dozen of us, eager to enjoy a good stretch of galloping, were given the go-ahead by our gaucho guide Fabian. Off we flew, a-whooping and a-yelling like a cavalry charge. Kicking up dust, we rode hard for 20 minutes, but somewhere in our spirited dash my poncho flew off. It could have landed anywhere within an area a mile wide by three miles long.

When we stopped by a river, the rest of the group joined us and Fabian was told of my mishap. He told me to go on with the group across the river and said he’d return to find my poncho. I insisted on returning with him to help. He smirked and said, “So little confidence you have in me?”

Another squall was moving over the area. Again he told me to join the others. I complied, despite my misgivings, and crossed the river with the others. The guides led us on across the plain toward the distant guard house we’d left five days before. I kept looking back through binoculars I’d brought.

There was no sign of him for 20 minutes. Then, like a moment in a David Lean film, a murky form appeared on the horizon and slowly grew bigger in my binocular lens. It was Fabian, galloping hard and gallantly across the plain.

Minutes later he crossed the river and galloped up to me, dug into his saddlebag and pulled out my poncho--perfectly folded. My travel mates applauded. In gratitude, I gave him my binoculars. He gazed on them with wonder, prizing them as much as I did the item he’d retrieved.

He nodded at me in thanks; I nodded back the same. At this moment I realized I’d experienced the main thing I came to Argentina for: to step back in time and ride with the characters I’d read about in all those history books.

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GUIDEBOOK

Rough Riders

Getting there: There is no nonstop service from LAX to Buenos Aires. United and Lan Chile fly direct (no change of plane) and American and Varig airlines have connecting flights. Fares begin at $1,295 round trip. From Buenos Aires, Feeling Turismo, the agency which operated my horse trip, will arrange transportation to the Andes town where the trips begin, for an extra fee.

Horseback tours: Feeling Turismo (San Martin 969, Piso Segundo, Buenos Aires 1004, Argentina; telephone 011-541-313-5533; fax 011-541-315-2682) offers trips from December to March. A seven-day package, with five days of riding and two nights’ hotel, is $490 to $530. Other local outfits offer riding trips, though friends warned that on some, travelers were fed badly or taken where the weather was iffy, so be sure to check around. American firms that also book similar trips are Equitour, tel. (800) 545- 0019 (cost, about $240 a night) and Boojum Expeditions, tel. (406) 587-0125 (about $3,600 for 12 days).