Guachos--The Chilean Cowboy, in all its glory.

I'm not a vegetarian. I eat meat and usually I don't feel any guilt when I do consume an occasional chicken, but like the words of Anthony Bourdain when he visited the underworld South of Chile, in its rowdy, spur-clad gang of cowboys, rodeos here just make you sad. After the agonizing chase, the calf is beat with a hefty club, in Bourdain's words, its like watching the night's dinner being tenderized right before you. The rodeo I attended, however, was on a much smaller scale, in terms of brutality, size, and excitement.

Joe, Lena and I arrived at the dirt road turnoff at 12:15, fifteen minutes after the supposed rodeo was to commence, according to the Pichilemu City festivities for Independence Day weekend. We saw the cows waiting in the pin, a lone horse waiting by a large Chilean flag, and a small handful of Chileans milling around taking pictures of the empty arena. "This is a Chilean rodeo?" both Joe and Lena exclaimed with shock and dissapointment. But once again we forgot, we're on Chilean time, which means things start appox. three hours later, if you're lucky.

We asked around, ultimately landing with the old man sporting a large black cowboy hat, he seemed to at least look like he was in the know. Between his thick rural Chilean accent and my lack of Spanish knowledge, I discerned that the rodeo wouldn't be starting for another, well, few hours. Chileans never give you a straight answer and even if they don't know the answer, they'll tell you what they think you want to know. For example, asking directions on the street, you should expect to ask three others because Chileans will make up an answer instead of just telling you they don't know. However, in the humbling kindness that almost all Chileans exude, our friendly cowboy told us we could wander the fields surrounding the valley, including the farm up the dirt path.



From a distance, I spotted a few pinned up llamas and ventured in that direction before voicing my desire to my friends. I'm not sure why, but I have an obsession with llamas. This also includes Alpacas, I'm giddy with excitement for Peru for this reason. But more enthralling, as it turned out, was the house beyond the furry creatures. The real cowboys were getting ready and preparing for the apparently real rodeo. We snapped photos, after asking first, and in turn, the pack of "rowdy" men shared vino tinto in a carved horn with us. It was much more exciting than the actual rodeo that started an hour later. We left after the break with a couple from Santiago. "Foama," he said in regards to his opinion on the rodeo. English translation, boring. They were stopping through Pichilemu and agreed to give us a ride. In Chile, hitchhiking is the most common mode of transportation for students and for three study abroad students in the rural south, we'll take advantage of that.