Last week I arrived in a wonderland of towering pampas grasses, rolling hills, blue skies with clouds resembling the argentine flag, gauchos galloping around herding herds of cows from field to field. For the next eight months I will be working on an estancia located in the Central Sierras, a couple of hours from the beautiful argentine city of Cordoba. 

The Central Sierras run by the gauchos and their horses and of course there dogs, a mythical place of alien landings and stunning dramatic mountains form the most incredible landscapes. 

I left Cordoba airport apprehensive for my new adventure full of the excitement that something magical was about to happen. I had taken a job as the assistant chef in a what I now know as a charming family run estancia half an hour from the nearest town filled with the most beautiful animals, staff and buildings you can imagine. I headed straight for the estancia leaving the city of Cordoba as a speak of dust in the wing mirror, my taxi driver took me along the winding road and up high to the mountain range beyond and my new home.  The mountain range was formed 400 million years before the Andes and flaked with moorlands and pampas grasses, perfect for horse-riding, herding cows something my life would soon be filled with.  

I arrived at the secluded working ranch world-renowned for the family atmosphere and top gauchos who will take you on epic rides across the undulating landscape. Amongst the horses is the special Peruvian Paso, a breed famous for their extra gait – the equivalent of my fairly entered fifth gear. Little did I know that as I passed through the first of many gates on my way up to the estancia my life was about to be altered and changed just a little bit more by my next adventure. I was greeted by the owner smiling in his iconic boina he welcomed me to his house and I knew I had become part of the family and I’d only been here 4 hours.

The first sight I saw as I opened the window of my new room was a gaucho riding up the track outside my house herding a group of young horses, totally in tune with his horse and whistling the others a long I knew that the next 8 months here would be something I would never forget. As my first week draws to a close I know this is going to be an experience I would never be able to forget.