Back In the Saddle Again

The estancia experience was such a good one, it is worthy of a second blog post.  My great friend, Lynne (with an E!) had visited Los Pots (as those in the know call it) a couple of years ago. Lynne loves horses and is an experienced rider, and she raved endlessly about her time there.  I was delighted when my travel agent also suggested the estancia as part of our itinerary, and Lynne assured me that they could cater to a wide range of equestrian skills.  Despite my Texas passport, I am not the most skilled of riders, especially out of a western saddle where the most exertion required is getting your boots off at the end of the day.

The staff, as explained in my previous blog, are all experts whether it is in the care and feeding of the horses and cattle (gouchos) or the care and feeding of the guests (the chalet girls guides). The gouchos didn’t say much, only adding to the allure of the cowboy mystique, but you just knew that they would be completely unflappable in any situation that arose.  I did wonder if I could rely on them for mouth to mouth resuscitation should the need arise, but reluctantly resisted the temptation to find out. The guides were not an entirely unfamiliar type, as they were all just slightly younger than Sadie and had the confidence and sense of place in the world’s social order that only time spent in an English public school can deliver. They were effortlessly charming. Georgia is only slightly older than the other girls yet has the responsible job of managing the estancia day to day.  Her photo is prominent when you look up images for the word “bubbly”.  Kevin owns the estancia with his family, and he is smooth and winsome with a wickedly British sense of humour. I never entirely knew when he was joking. I’m not sure he does either. 

The other guests were wildly interesting as well. Caroline is a French mother of four, ranging in age from 26 to 39. Hugo, the youngest, accompanied her. What is it about French women? They seem to have this extraordinary ability to look as if they just stepped out of an art gallery, even when dusty from the trail, and somehow can make a scarf do all their heavy lifting. It’s sorcery. Caroline spoke little English, but Hugo speaks fluent Spanish. He teaches polo and is getting ready to move to Spain. Unfortunately, he didn’t take on much of the translation work for his mother, a task that fell mostly to Chantal and me. We both wanted to give him a good slap. Caroline was even more of a novice rider than I, and I sometimes struggled to come up with appropriate French translations.  At one point, she was leaning forward too much in the saddle and I couldn’t think of how to tell her to pull her shoulders back. So, I just shouted “boobs devant” (boobs in front)! It did the trick but we both almost came off our horses from laughing so hard.  Then that became her catch phrase, and every time she saw me she shouted “boobs devant!”.

Chantal…I could not have invented her.Born of an Italian father and a Chilean mother, she was raised in Paris, educated at Smith and got her MBA at Stern. She now lives in London and runs a photgraphic agency. She is stunningly beautiful and appeared daily with perfectly applied makeup which she later revealed is some kind of permanent tattoo kind of thing. Despite being a near perfect physical creature, she is hilariously funny, self deprecating and refuses to take herself too seriously.  She does that totally endearing thing of using your name when she speaks to you. You know what I mean. “Lisa, how was your day”?  I don’t know why but it just charms the pants off me. I think I am a little in love with her even though we have zero in common. I expect everyone is a little or a lot in love with Chantal. 

I arrived on a Sunday evening, and dinner was an informal affair where we all got to participate in preparation. This included making two different types of quickbread, two different types of empanadas, ravioli filled with butternut squash, and chimichuri sauce for the magnificent steaks. The estancia employs two chefs, and they clearly take their work very seriously. Every meal was a masterpiece accompanied by free flowing and excellent wines. After all my hard work losing weight, I feel like I am conducting a very important scientific experiment to study the impact of gourmet food and top notch wines on my fitness. As most Americans seem to ignore scientific evidence, I will just conclude for now that it’s all very good for me!

The only other thing remaining for me to share is that the riding was exceptional.  The horses were perfection, and the scenery was breathtaking.  There was only one small incident crossing a ravine through some trees that the feisty Piquillin managed to clear somehow, but I didn’t and I got spectacularly scraped and bruised. I think I actually heard my horse snicker. I am quite pleased with my war wounds though and I was christened by enough trees to be named as branch manager.