Where would I live (if I could)? This is a question that
is very difficult to answer. So I need to think of all the places I have
lived in, as an adult, and places that I stayed at for extended periods of
time, and what memories I have. This brings me to the province of Cordoba
in the middle of Argentina. Although I love cities with their constant
activities, and vibrant life, I also enjoy nature, to think and write
in a peaceful place, and this brings memories of the ranch life in the
pampas region of Cordoba.
During a summer I stayed at a ranch that had
fields of wheat, cattle and horses. If I could wake up one day, and buy a
(smaller) ranch like this there and just move, I would be ecstatic.
This land had two large homes. There was the main Victorian style home,
with French windows, large rooms and high ceilings, and a beautiful landscaped garden
of snapdragons, roses, and many trees, where the owner and his wife
lived. And there was the ranch manager (son of the owner) home, a
low, sturdily built home with a front verandah, wooden shutters, well cared
for, with chintz covered sofa and chairs in the living room, a large ebony
Victorian cupboard in the formal dining room, and a kitchen nook, with walls
decorated with colorful linen towels from the UK, beside a window
overlooking the rose garden. My guest room was in the ranch manager
family's house, and my room was very simple, with flower prints on the
wall, a large window where the bright sun entered every morning, and
outside in the hallway there was a cuckoo clock that worked well and was
picturesque and woke me up, but that was ok.
Around the house there were jasmine flowers, and in the
nearby fields, there were Scottish looking thistles. There
were eucalyptus trees that lined the long road to the main house. I learned
that eucalyptus trees were not native to Argentina but had been brought from
Australia, as well as the water tanks. It was on this ranch where I
first saw an iguana wandering around the swimming pool, and a
praying mantis enjoying the light in the verandah one summer evening.
To celebrate New Year's the whole household which
included guests who had come for the holidays from the Cordoba hills,
Singapore, and England, went for a picnic on the monte, which was not a
mountain but a woods of algarrobo trees, short and with twisted branches, where
we sat in a clearing and talked about our travels under the stars. The property was owned by an Anglo-Argentine family who had come to Argentina to help build the railroads some generations ago. They still worked the land and were involved with their town and its community, but everyone went to boarding school in England (on the then called Lollipop Express, which I think was a chartered flight). They spoke English at home, a particular old fashioned English with a few words typical of their community in Argentina - for example, instead of saying "we're going to the countryside for the weekend" they would say "we're going to the camp for the weekend". Campo is countryside in Spanish.
I remember the cattle drives past the house with gauchos on horseback who came well in advance advising the 'patron' to close the windows for the dust. We would have a lamb 'asado' which is a barbecue outside the main house, accompanied always with simple sides, salads, maybe some potatoes. A special dessert I remember were fresh figs with heavy cream. The heat that summer reached 45 Celsius which was quite warm, but the climate was very dry, and the houses, without air conditioning, stayed cool within their walls. It took me a couple of weeks to get used to the silence (there was no television, an occasional record on the record player – and the clock but I got used to it) and to be able to hear the sounds of nature around me, and even my own thoughts, sometimes too influenced by all the noise when living in the city. We went around the property on horseback to visit the tambos (small dairies, each managed by a family who lived there) sedate rides on gentle horses.
One of my favorite writers is Manuel Mujica Lainez, an Argentine writer, who retired to live in the Cordoba Hills, and I can understand why.
