“Good morning brother,” I said to Mario crawling out of my sleeping bag.
It was a cold morning in Uruguay. I walked out to the mare’s pasture to get the girls and was overwhelmed with the beauty I encountered. The large pond that sat in the middle of the green pasture had a thick layer of mist dancing atop the sparkling water. With the sun rising over the horizon, the pond’s surface mirrored the pink and violet clouds in the light-blue sky.
Our second day in Uruguay couldn’t have started better! Mario put our makeshift kitchen away while I tacked the girls. Just after 8am we said goodbye to our host Pedro and began riding south.
Just like the first day on the road, I was memorized with the scenery as I rode through the morning hours. But unlike the first day, after lunch, the green pastures of the pampas turned into large pine and eucalyptus farms. On both sides of the road, trees went on as far as the eye could see, making it a real problem to find a place to spend the night.
“There are no ranches or houses for at least 40 kms from where we started this morning,” Mario said to me over the phone that afternoon.
He went ahead looking for a place for us to spend the night but there was nothing close. Riding 40 plus kilometres on our second day out was not what I had in mind. But like many times before there was nothing we could do but bite the bullet and ride on.
With dusk settling in I rode past a burnt car and made a right down a dirt road leading to an old farm house. Mario was waiting for me with his mate in hand and a thermos of warm water under his armpit – something I grew used to seeing daily. Like every good gaucho, he is addicted to mate!
“How are you feeling brother,” he asked while I stepped off Cautiva.
“I’m sore as heck,” I replied laughing at the pain.
I untacked the mares and fed them before turning the girls out in the pasture in front of the concrete home. The elderly man who owned the farm came out for a split second to introduce himself and hid back inside. Like many of the borders I crossed, the people I met near the Brazilian border are very shy. They allowed us to set up our sleeping bags in an old garage but didn’t mingle. We only spoke to the men for a few minutes and the women stayed far away from our sight.
I set up the saddle blankets in the garage where we would spend the night and Mario put his king size mattress down next to my bed. I laughed at the size of his mattress and the fact that he put sheets on it.
“This guy roughs it like a king,” I said to him laughing hard.
We cooked noodles with 4 eggs that Pedro, our last host, gave us that morning and ate dinner with the smell of engine oil choking us. The garage we were in was full of tools, animal skins, an old car, and medication for cattle and horses. But for tonight it was our home.
