Living in Argentina has caused my life to become a series of
‘once-in-a-lifetime’ experiences and opportunities, to the point that I
sometimes catch myself taking it for granted and let the moment pass me
by. Waking up to horses outside my
window, playing with weeks-old foals, listening to traditional Argentine music,
drinking wine in the evening while chatting with a host of international
guests, sharing a meal with the gauchos, racing through the tall grass as wind
whips my hair around my face. All of
these have become regular occurrences in my life here, and I for a while I
became complacent about appreciating them.
However, a few weeks ago we had a film crew come to the estancia for a
couple days in order to shoot footage for a promotional video. Little did I know that a simple 60 second
video would require four days of shooting, weeks of editing, and lead to me to
renewed awe of what my life has become.
How often does a person get to see a stamped of about 130
horses? Usually, stampeding horses is a
signal that something is going terribly wrong and everyone should be scrambling
around trying to resolve the situation and calm the horses. However, in this case, we were able to sit
back and enjoy the horses streaming by, secure in the knowledge that this was a
planned event and that there are a handful of skilled gauchos on horseback
managing the situation. So, at about
7am, just as the sun established its presence on the horizon, a crowd of us –
three guests, two bosses, four guides, one manager, three film crew members,
and one dog – stood expectantly staring into the distance, anticipating what
was about to happen.
We heard them well before we saw them. And we felt it well before we heard it. The ground vibrating beneath us, being
trampled by the oncoming horses. A
second later, we could hear the horses’ hooves pounding the dry earth as they
raced towards us. Then came the distinct
calls of the gauchos urging the horses on; a uniquely distinctive combination of whistles, whoops,
screams, and hollers. The gauchos were
loving this moment and taking full advantage of demonstrating their skills as
fearless horsemen. Then, the first ears
appeared on the horizon, silhouetted against the rising sun. All ~260 ears were perfectly alert, focused
on the ground before them and the crowd awaiting their arrival. The horses came flooding over the hilltop
then appeared to fly through the tall grass towards those of us at the
bottom. Manes and tails were streaming
out behind them and catching the light of the sun to magnify the beauty of the
moment. Lou, the Lady of the Estancia,
was trying to take pictures but couldn’t, due to the fact that she was so
overcome with emotion that she started crying and couldn’t focus through the
lends. Meanwhile, I was desperately pushing
my shutter button and adjusting my settings in a fruitless effort to capture
the movement of the horses and pure awe of the moment. 
Never in my life have I witnessed something like this before. You could almost imagine that this was a herd
of wild horses that the gauchos were rounding up to take back to their estancia
to break and train. Incredible,
magnificent, unbelievable, splendid, and stunning can’t even begin to sum up
this moment. It was totally worth the
6am wake up and subsequent stumble through the darkness to get to the main
house. As the morning light seeped over
the hills and filled the valleys, the gauchos and horses did a few more passes:
darting through the pampas grass, gracefully galloping over the flat fields,
and eventually disappearing behind the hill that they first came over. This sight left all of us a bit breathless
and it took a few minutes to come back from this fantasy and be able to enter
the workday. 
The next few days were a blur of constant activity. Usually we just go out on rides, make it up
as we go, and don’t have much to worry about beyond the safety of our guests
and horses. However, on these days we
had to coordinate our movements with the film crew so that they could capture
our experience on camera. Radio messages
were flying back and forth on the ground, while a drone was flying in the sky,
scanning the area below. One of the aspects of riding that they wanted to
capture was the process of herding cattle and bringing them in to the cattle
station. This is something that we do
once or twice a month with guests and actually serves a practical purpose. Sometimes the gauchos need to administer
vaccines or do health checks, other times we need to castrate or brand the
young calves. Point being, this is not
something that we do just for show; this is actually a working cattle ranch.
On this particular day, we were gathering about 250 hundred cattle
to take them to a salt lick area, then on to the cattle station, Chiviquin. While herding cattle tends to be less
thrilling than watching a herd of stampeding horses, it is interesting in its
own way, especially for guests who have never taken part in cattle work
before. As we set off from the estancia,
we were on our own – taking our time collecting stray cattle and adding to the
bellowing herd. It was a morning of
chasing runaway calves, going into trenches to chase cows, then lazily
following the slow-moving herd. The
soundtrack for the morning was the constant bellowing of cows: calves left
behind, cows trying to locate their calves, and bulls moaning at being
disturbed. However, as we came closer to
Chiviquin, we realized that we were no longer alone. It sounded like a swarm of bees overhead, but
if one was to look up, they would realize that it was the drone, hovering above
us and watching our every move. From the sides, other gauchos appeared with
more cows, lending a measure of authenticity and credibility to our
activity. As we joined herds and pushed
the cows into the cattle station, we must have looked somewhat impressive. Nearly 300 cows surrounded by a posse of four
gauchos, a few guests, and two guides.
As we approached the film crew, the cows flowed around them, bellowing
their annoyance then continuing on. It will be interesting to see what kind of
images and sounds the crew recorded during this outing. 
Throughout their time at the estancia, the film crew spent a lot of
time recording footage to illustrate other aspects of the ranch such as dining,
social interactions among staff and guests, as well as the beauty of the
estancia. However, since I did not take
pictures of that stuff, you don’t get to learn about it :p You will just have
to wait for the video to come out.
The final part of filming, in regards to riding, centered around
polo. Because we only had one guest at
this point, we called in outside help in the form of Belen, one of Lou’s
friends and the first female professional polo player in this province. She is a tornado with two feet – full of
energy, always ready to roar with laughter, and totally intimidating on the
polo field. She is fantastic. Belen brought up some of her friends as well
so that we would have enough people to field two polo teams and even have some
extra players. When we got to the polo
field, the first step was to introduce the horses to the drone. The operator wanted to fly low to the field
for the best shots, but we didn’t want one of those shots to be of a horse
going crazy and sending a rider flying through the air. As the drone operator hovered the drone about
20 feet off the ground, the players slowly walked towards it with their horses
until the horses no longer cared about it.
Game on.
For the next hour, we raced across the polo pitch in pursuit of
that tiny white ball, while overhead, the drone chased after us attempting to
capture the action. One of my favorite
snapshots from this day was of the gauchos peering over the shoulder of the
drone operator, transfixed by the images on the screen and the capabilities of
the drone. It was a total clash of old school tradition and new school
technology. Admittedly, I was pretty
curious myself; I had never seen a drone in action before this week. They are pretty incredible and the footage
was amazing! I cannot wait to see how
the video turns out. Anyway, that about
sums up Film Week. Four days of hard
work, not wearing my neon orange shirt, making sure we actually shower before
meals, and trying to fit all of the estancia’s activities into three days; when
the video is produced we shall see if it all paid off. 
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