El Dia Filete

A week ago we scouted a new excursion for the hotel.  We were accompanied by the manager of the hotel and three other guides, Poroto, Isi, and Natalia.  Poroto’s real name is Jose but is nicknamed Poroto because it means bean and he is like the size of a little bean.

The day started off by stopping at our neighboring estancia to get the key for a gated road we needed to cross in order to arrive at the estancia where we would start the hike. Part of Latin American culture is to converse with your neighbor and ask how every member of the family is doing.   The manager talked business with him while the rest of us stayed outside entertained by the two puppies playing on old ranch tools that are now decoration. Before leaving, we got a tour of the estancia owner’s house.  The old ranch house was humbly decorated and filled with an aroma of a typical Chilean dish.

Kitchen at the estancia

As we made our way to Estancia Las Chinas, we weaved through roads and countless gates in order to arrive at a barn with a bright orange roof and weathered tin walls.   We started the hike from here and climbed for about two hours until reaching a rock field filled with prehistoric rock formations.  The view to the west displayed the Paine Massif with the towers, the view to the south showed the massive expanse of pampa, and to the east we saw the Baguales mountain range resembling the hair of Bart Simpson.  We spent two hours having lunch, climbing on the rocks, and watching the condors glide above us. Andy played dead an on the top of a rock they started circling him.  

Andy and the Bean

Can you find Andy and Poroto on the top of the rocks?

Upon returning to the estancia we had tea or once (pronounced like the number eleven in Spanish) with Jorge, the gaucho of the estancia, and his wife, Maria.  We all sat around their large dining table and enjoyed yerba mate, bread, and homemade jam.  The house had all kinds of treasures including a puma skull, a variety of fossils from the nearby land, a Jeffrey cat skin where Jorge kept his yerba mate, and four kittens of about two weeks old.  They also proudly showed us a photo the appeared to have a UFO but after looking closer, we discovered there was a fly on the lens.  No one had the heart to tell them.

Estancia Las Chinas.

We returned a different way than we came on a huella, which is a “dirt road” but really it just looks like a few cars have passed through and left behind tire marks.  It took about 2.5 hours to make it back to the hotel due to a few detours.  1) We stopped at estancia where they happened to be branding horses, 2) crossed a river in 4runners, 3) caught an armadillo, 4) had a photo shoot in the middle of the pampa. In Chile, to describe something that is the best you can say, “el filete”, this literally means the filet mignon.   By the time we made it back, we all agreed it was one of the best days at “work” we’ve had or “el dia filete”.

Horse Branding - they hold back the ears of the horse to distract it.  They say its like getting its ears pierced but I'm not sure the horses feel the same way.

Gauchos rounding up the horses

River Crossing

Armadillo Catch