Part I
Trekkers awoke to much grape-related pain that morning. A 3:30 am night followed by a 7 am wake-up call will do that to you.
[Unfortunately, this has kinda sorta become a theme for our merry gang. Apparently, we really like pain. Or suffer from the misguided belief that we're all 22.]
But the two-hour bus ride to a ranch outside the city gives us time to recuperate. And caffeinate. Si, si, muy importante. Which was good, because we wouldn't have wanted to miss out on the experience that followed. Pat, who seemed to run things at Elumbu estancia greeted us with a smile, and more importantly, freshly fried empanadas. If there's one thing you need to know about life, it's that fried, or 'frita' > baked, or 'boring' empanadas. There were even vegetarian ones for Sawna Peas & Carrots Patel, and Shaival 'foolish enough to pick this M-Trek despite having endured four years with Ajay' Shah, our resident vegetables. I mean vegetarians. Huh. What? Moving on.
And then began one of the high-points of the entire trip - horse back riding. With help from Gaucho extraordinaire Pablo, we all managed to make it onto our horses without incident. Shaival and I were matched with what were basically the Shaquille O Neals of the ranch, owing to our large err.. personalities. Seriously, these two horses were tanks. Just massive. Made Bryant's ride look like a seahorse. As our posse of 20 or so horses John Wayned our way around the ranch, we came to realise that Gaucho's kind of had it good. Vast expanses of verdant green flatlands as far as the eye can see, crisp air for the breathing, the company of fine animals, that rakishly handsome cowboy boots and Gaucho hat combo? Oh, and empanadas. Yeah. Give me some of that.
No WiFi though. Thought I'd mention that. In case you were about to click 'submit' on that one-way ticket purchase already.
Lunch was a grand affair. With Pablo doubling as host, and loading up our plates with chorizo (good!), steak (of course), ribs (yay), and morcilla (aka blood sausage, aka made us slightly uncomfortable, aka not getting seconds, evarr). Eating in Elumbu's charming dining room came with the added advtantage of roping random people at other tables into our 'name, where you from, fun fact' game. Groups of 16 seem to have their own gravity.
The post-lunch riding session was what took the cake though. Warmed up from the lunch, loosened up by the wine, we had a great time with the horses. Experimentation with the reins, making clicking noises and digging in with the stirrups upgraded some of us from a walk to a trot, trot to canter, and on some stretches, up to a gallop. Growing up in a flat in Bombay almost certainly precludes one from say - keeping a giant horse at home, so I never really understood why some people loved riding so much. But I get it now. The connection you feel with the animal as it powers across the ground, graciously allowing you to tell it what to do - it's magnificent. That afternoon I was jealous of Pablo and his lifestyle. What a rush. I have to find a way to go riding in real life. Jamee, you listening? Yo quiero horsie. Can has por favor?
Part II
I'm not the biggest fan of using the word 'crazy' to describe an experience. What does that even mean? Besides the fact that whoever's using it might be too lazy to actually describe what just happened, and would rather resort to saying "Yeah, dude, that was crazy." So I recognize both the irony and hypocrisy I perpetrate when I say that watching a Boca Juniors game in La Boca was just... crazy. Crazy. That's what Argentinian football fans are. Stark. Raving. Mad.
So let me give you some perspective here. I come from Bombay. To say that Bombay's local trains are "crowded," is severely understating how many heaving, jostling people you can fit into a space. To say that a cricket match at Wankhede stadium has "atmosphere" is also understating how.. atmospheric an experience an India cricket match at Wankhede can be. So I hope you understand the full weight of what I'm saying, when I say that a season opener Boca Juniors game at La Boca stadium probably has more atmosphere than a Wankheded cricket match, and more heaving, jostling, borderline violent crazy people than a Bombay local train. And I don't want you to think it was a bad experience. Nah. It was kinda awesome. But it was plumb crazy.
It took us the better part of an hour, literally squeezing past hoardes of locals chanting Boca cheers and songs, near-crush experiences with barricades, and half a dozen pat-downs by the Buenos Aires policia - before we could get into the stadium. The scene inside the stadium was.. something to be remembered. It's as though an entire 50,000 capacity stadium itself was singing, loudly, in a single voice, to the accompaniment of the the most enthusiastic and loud drum and brass band I have ever seen. Of course, we wedged ourselves into a space right above said band. What self-respecting gang of 16 Michigan students wouldn't? I lost count, but it seemed like every local in the stadium knew a dozen Boca songs down pat, and sang them to the fullest as the band jumped from one to the next. And unlike a cricket match, the crowd was jumping, heaving and singing at full throttle pretty much the entire time - whether Boca was in possession or not. The most committed of the lot chose to stand precariously on top of metal railings (offering very little purchase for anybody's feet), holding onto fabric penants that ran across the stands, dancing pretty much the entire time. It was quite something to see. The football was good. Boca won 4-0. I'd love to tell you who exactly they beat 4-0, but I don't really remember.
What happened after the game was perhaps even more memorable. We spent 40 minutes wedged between a hoarde of hundreds of impatient Boca fans, and a wall of riot police - helmets, nightsticks and all - waiting to get out of the stadium. Given that half the crowd was baked (that goes on a lot at football matches, apparently), that everyone was tired of waiting, and that we had the same freedom to move around as passengers on the Virar local pulling out of Dadar station, it was quite an experience. After about half an hour, some of the policia took pity at the 'oh my god we're all going to die' look on some of the girls' faces, and let them out a few minutes before the rest of the crowd. The rest of us finally did get out, life and limb intact. The only thought on our minds - if this is how the crowd gets when Boca wins, we ought not to be there when they lose.
Trekkers awoke to much grape-related pain that morning. A 3:30 am night followed by a 7 am wake-up call will do that to you.
[Unfortunately, this has kinda sorta become a theme for our merry gang. Apparently, we really like pain. Or suffer from the misguided belief that we're all 22.]
But the two-hour bus ride to a ranch outside the city gives us time to recuperate. And caffeinate. Si, si, muy importante. Which was good, because we wouldn't have wanted to miss out on the experience that followed. Pat, who seemed to run things at Elumbu estancia greeted us with a smile, and more importantly, freshly fried empanadas. If there's one thing you need to know about life, it's that fried, or 'frita' > baked, or 'boring' empanadas. There were even vegetarian ones for Sawna Peas & Carrots Patel, and Shaival 'foolish enough to pick this M-Trek despite having endured four years with Ajay' Shah, our resident vegetables. I mean vegetarians. Huh. What? Moving on.
And then began one of the high-points of the entire trip - horse back riding. With help from Gaucho extraordinaire Pablo, we all managed to make it onto our horses without incident. Shaival and I were matched with what were basically the Shaquille O Neals of the ranch, owing to our large err.. personalities. Seriously, these two horses were tanks. Just massive. Made Bryant's ride look like a seahorse. As our posse of 20 or so horses John Wayned our way around the ranch, we came to realise that Gaucho's kind of had it good. Vast expanses of verdant green flatlands as far as the eye can see, crisp air for the breathing, the company of fine animals, that rakishly handsome cowboy boots and Gaucho hat combo? Oh, and empanadas. Yeah. Give me some of that.
No WiFi though. Thought I'd mention that. In case you were about to click 'submit' on that one-way ticket purchase already.
Lunch was a grand affair. With Pablo doubling as host, and loading up our plates with chorizo (good!), steak (of course), ribs (yay), and morcilla (aka blood sausage, aka made us slightly uncomfortable, aka not getting seconds, evarr). Eating in Elumbu's charming dining room came with the added advtantage of roping random people at other tables into our 'name, where you from, fun fact' game. Groups of 16 seem to have their own gravity.The post-lunch riding session was what took the cake though. Warmed up from the lunch, loosened up by the wine, we had a great time with the horses. Experimentation with the reins, making clicking noises and digging in with the stirrups upgraded some of us from a walk to a trot, trot to canter, and on some stretches, up to a gallop. Growing up in a flat in Bombay almost certainly precludes one from say - keeping a giant horse at home, so I never really understood why some people loved riding so much. But I get it now. The connection you feel with the animal as it powers across the ground, graciously allowing you to tell it what to do - it's magnificent. That afternoon I was jealous of Pablo and his lifestyle. What a rush. I have to find a way to go riding in real life. Jamee, you listening? Yo quiero horsie. Can has por favor?
Part II
I'm not the biggest fan of using the word 'crazy' to describe an experience. What does that even mean? Besides the fact that whoever's using it might be too lazy to actually describe what just happened, and would rather resort to saying "Yeah, dude, that was crazy." So I recognize both the irony and hypocrisy I perpetrate when I say that watching a Boca Juniors game in La Boca was just... crazy. Crazy. That's what Argentinian football fans are. Stark. Raving. Mad.
So let me give you some perspective here. I come from Bombay. To say that Bombay's local trains are "crowded," is severely understating how many heaving, jostling people you can fit into a space. To say that a cricket match at Wankhede stadium has "atmosphere" is also understating how.. atmospheric an experience an India cricket match at Wankhede can be. So I hope you understand the full weight of what I'm saying, when I say that a season opener Boca Juniors game at La Boca stadium probably has more atmosphere than a Wankheded cricket match, and more heaving, jostling, borderline violent crazy people than a Bombay local train. And I don't want you to think it was a bad experience. Nah. It was kinda awesome. But it was plumb crazy.
It took us the better part of an hour, literally squeezing past hoardes of locals chanting Boca cheers and songs, near-crush experiences with barricades, and half a dozen pat-downs by the Buenos Aires policia - before we could get into the stadium. The scene inside the stadium was.. something to be remembered. It's as though an entire 50,000 capacity stadium itself was singing, loudly, in a single voice, to the accompaniment of the the most enthusiastic and loud drum and brass band I have ever seen. Of course, we wedged ourselves into a space right above said band. What self-respecting gang of 16 Michigan students wouldn't? I lost count, but it seemed like every local in the stadium knew a dozen Boca songs down pat, and sang them to the fullest as the band jumped from one to the next. And unlike a cricket match, the crowd was jumping, heaving and singing at full throttle pretty much the entire time - whether Boca was in possession or not. The most committed of the lot chose to stand precariously on top of metal railings (offering very little purchase for anybody's feet), holding onto fabric penants that ran across the stands, dancing pretty much the entire time. It was quite something to see. The football was good. Boca won 4-0. I'd love to tell you who exactly they beat 4-0, but I don't really remember.
I'm listening... will find horseys in ann arbor soon :)
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