No horses, no driver . . . it’s time to cowboy up
“Thank you for getting me this far,” I whispered to Life and Doll, as tears rolled down my face. “I’m going to miss you two.”
After 2,200 hard kilometres through Brazil and five long months on the road together — on my year-long journey to the tip of South America — it was time to say goodbye to my girls. I ran out of time and I ran out of money. My horses were not permitted to enter Uruguay. Bureaucracy won and I was now a horseless cowboy.
To make matters worse, my childhood friend and support driver Mark Maw, who had been so crucial to my trip so far, messaged me from Canada, where he was taking a short break, to say he wasn’t coming back. He wrote me a beautiful letter essentially saying this was my journey, my dream, and now he had to find his. I totally understood, yet I was fuming. And I would really miss him.
With no horses or support driver to continue on, and no time for self-pity, I did the only thing I knew how — cowboy up!
No matter how hard that bronc or bull, or even life, pounds you into the ground, you pick up your hat, brush the dirt off your jeans and get back on. I immediately began making calls, and in less than 24 hours I was lent two mares.
“We have been following (your journey) since you left Canada,” said Nicolas Lanfranco, a fourth-generation gaucho rancher with 350 horses and 3,000 head of cattle on his vast ranch. In fact, his son, also named Nicolas, completed a Long Ride around Uruguay on one of the mares they were handing over to me.
“These are your new quarter horses, Andariega and Cautiva,” said Lanfranco, introducing me to my new chestnut mares.
Born from the same stud, they looked like identical twins with white stripes running down their faces. I blew into their nostrils to introduce myself. They perked their ears forward expectantly.
For the next week I trained my new mares on the art of Long Riding — ponying, carrying the pack saddle and remaining calm near busy roads. Andariega and Cautiva were a little nervous but learned quickly.
In between lessons a ranch hand grudgingly agreed to show me how the gauchos ride broncs bareback. A bad-tempered stallion, with a cloth covering its eyes, was tied to a tall wooden pole. When the animal stopped freaking out, the gaucho, wearing large spurs, jumped on its bareback and tied a leather strap around the horse’s neck. He used the strap to secure his left hand and entwined his fingers in the horse’s thick, muddy mane.
With a quick nod, the blindfold was removed and the lead rope released from the pole. Like an angry devil, the stud took off and the gaucho fought to stay aboard. After two bucks, the stud’s power was too much and the young man was thrown to the ground. My turn. The workers struggled to blindfold a big bay mare tied to a pole. Swallowing my fear, I jumped on her dirty back. She stood still, unable to see anything, but I could feel the adrenalin within her boiling.
I nodded and squeezed my legs. As soon as her blindfold was flung off, she jolted like a derailed train. She galloped for a full stride before throwing her back end up. I held on for dear life. On her third buck, I swung up onto her withers, and as she felt my body moving toward her neck, she quickly dropped her head and slammed on the brakes. I hung in mid-air like a cartoon character for a very long second before eating a dirt sandwich.
I grinned. I felt like I could take on the world — or at least Uruguay.
The night before I was to leave, Mario Luna, who was hosting Life and Doll at his family’s ranch before their return to Sao Paulo, called me and said he would not let me continue alone. Unbelievably, I had new horses and now, a new support driver. We were ready to go.
With renewed energy we covered 250 kilometres of Uruguayan soil, hosted every night by gauchos in front of a roaring fire with sheep on a grill.
“We butcher a sheep every two days,” the gauchos bragged. Meat is serious business here. Uruguay is one of the world’s biggest consumers of meat per capita.
“If I don’t eat meat for breakfast I can’t work,” a gaucho told me one morning while we shared lamb chops.
I took a big, juicy bite. We were going to be fine. Filipe Masetti Leite is a filmmaker, Ryerson University journalism graduate and cowboy en route to Tierra del Fuego. He is filing monthly reports to the Star from the trail. Dispatches from both this year-long trip and his 2012 journey from Calgary to Brazil can be found at outwildtv.com/expeditions.