Uruguay

* Free subscriptions here * Read about Uruguay here Video from my Facebook page: Out of the Library, into the Saddle...

When Carlos walked into the stable yard this morning, he gave me a soft but meaningful look and said nothing. It was our last day working...

Published here by The Oldie Green leaves, dried and crushed. A simple cup – a carved-out gourd – cured through years of use. Hot water....

This afternoon, Carlos taught me how to tie up a horse’s tail using hair and spit alone. Mateo stood back, hands on hips, and admired the...

It’s a funny feeling; missing things I used to call ‘strange’. I’ve been in Uruguay long enough for the unfamiliar to become familiar,...

Horses are sociable creatures; when they’re loose on the Estancia, they always hang out in the same cliques, munching away on their favourite patches of grass. My first task in the morning is to round them up over 200 hectares of open pasture and push them into the corral near the stable yard. I tack up Tobiana, a doe-eyed skewbald, and set off at a gallop to the herd’s usual spots.

Mateo and I spent the afternoon sitting on the fence of the corral, watching Carlito break in a young bay called Rayo, Lightning. As...

Uruguay is the kind of place where you’ll find a frog in the shower and a firefly in your wine. It’s a rustic kind of magic that makes...