Estancia Telken - Chalcamata Valley

 At Home On The Range

Wednesday February 20, 2008

As promised in the last journal entry, it's time to talk about Estancia Telken.  The current proprietors, Coco and Petty Nauta, have lived here for many years, and they raised a family of three sons along the way. It is only in fairly recent times that they have started to take in tourists during the summer months and have also begun living in Buenos Aires during the harshest months of winter.  

The original house and ranch buildings on the property date back to the early 20th century, the most recent addition being a tourist guest house located near the original family house. Having requested a reservation way back in the North American springtime of 2007, we were lucky enough to be lodged in the only two tourist bedrooms in the original house, which makes them conveniently near the dining room, kitchen and living room. These rooms appeared to be original family bedrooms since the family now sneaks off into a newer-looking annex, and the bathroom that Lynn and I use across the hall from our room is a large, high-ceilinged affair with old original fixtures.  

One of the three sons was visiting and helping Coco with the endless load of miscellaneous  ranch chores during our stay, and on a couple of nights when the guest rooms were not full (and there was room at the table), Coco, Petty, and son Brian joined us for dinner. We also enjoyed the home-cooking and doting attentions of two housekeeper/cooks, Diana and Carolina. Anna summed up the overall feeling of the experience quite appropriately with one short comment, "It's like going to visit your Grandma's house..."  assuming of course, that you are lucky enough to have a perfect traditional "over the river and through the woods" set of grandparents. 

Of course there were those "other people." On four of the five nights of our stay, other visiting tourists joined us at the dinner table, and two nights a full house of 12 pushed Petty, Coco, and Brian into the kitchen to take their own dinners. But the other tourists were generally interesting, entertaining, and polite*, making for enjoyable conversations that lasted late into the evening (although the generator is turned off "lights out" curfew helped make sure everyone went to bed before midnight). On various evenings and mornings, we shared the table with guests from Argentina, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain.  The generator was turned on each night at the start of dinner (between 8:30 and 9:00pm) and turned off again at midnight. Since we were sitting at the dinner table for a large portion of that time, we had to pretty much rely on computer battery power for reviewing and re-sizing pictures for the journal. This daily task alone would generally use up a battery charge, so very little journal writing was accomplished until a few days after we left!

*except for the older Swiss lady who playfully(?) threatened me with her butter knife... I was asking her question about her travels trying to be polite and she just thought I was nosey. 

Driving up to Estancia Telken from the highway ruta 40.  

Closer look at the main house.  

There is some nice grazing land (with real grass) watered by the Arroyo Telken in the few acres of land between the buildings and the highway. 

Looking down upon the estancia buildings from a hill to the west. We took this picture this morning while we were riding horses around the property for a couple of hours.

Now getting back to what else we did during our stay (other than visiting Cueva De Las Manos and eating dinners with our hosts and other tourists...), on Monday we drove 80 kilometers to the "big city" of Los Antiguos for lunch, only to find that the restaurant we wanted to visit was closed for the day, but we were able to eat at the same place we ate the day we entered Argentina into this same little city back on December 12, 2007. Using the restaurant's wi-fi internet for an hour was an added benefit. The rest of the day was devoted to school. Of course.

Yesterday, we went back to the estancia which owns the property surrounding the Cuevas De Las Manos. There we enlisted the services of a hired guide to take us to another canyon in the vicinity. Petty had recommended the excursion, and it turned out to be a really enjoyable experience for several reasons. The weather was slightly overcast and not windy, which was quite comfortable, and having a private tour in a very private and remote place on the estancia was really special. The primary destination of the tour, "Charcamate Canyon" was almost more physically spectacular than the canyon where Cuevas De Las Manos is located. Charcamata Canyon is a steep narrow cut through which flows a small seasonal stream eventually leading into the Rio Pintura. There are also primitive rock paintings in two different locations within the canyon.  

First we had to get to the canyon, so we started out with a fairly long, slow drive on rugged tracks through the vast open space of the estancia. Our guide, Bruno, drove us in a well-used 4x4 pickup. Bruno did not speak English, but had the gift of speaking Spanish slowly and simply to us in a manner that allowed us to understand completely everything he was trying to tell us. How we wish everyone in the Spanish speaking world talked to us like Bruno.

On the way to Charcamata canyon, we had to cross over the Rio Pintura at the site of an old estancia house. The estancia "Los Toldos" (from which we hired Bruno) is the combination of four different estancias that were eventually bought and combined to create Los Toldos. The house here served one of the former "pre-merger" estancias named Madrugada, and was occupied up until the 1970's. Petty told us she thought that there is a tourism opportunity here, and has suggested to Los Toldos that they fix it up and bring folks here to stay, enjoy the peace and quiet, and perhaps ride horses for a day or two. The location is really splendid. As we would soon be made aware for a second time, from most vantage points the surrounding terrain looks like miles and miles of uninhabitable, parched, desert. But the Andean snow-melt has cut a network of sharp canyons that hide water running along their basins along with a rich diversity of life...

like here along a stretch of the Rio Pintura.

The old estancia house...

is quite a fixer-upper.

As we continued on in the pickup towards Charcamata Canyon, we first passed some large bluffs, 

and then finally arrived at the opening of the canyon.    

Here the road stopped, and we got out and started walking.

A spectacular walk through the narrow canyon eventually led us to...

another deep overhang where we could observe more ancient pre-Tehuelche paintings.

More hands and guanacos!  The oldest paintings at this site are not as old as the oldest paintings at Cuava de Las Manos. These date back only as far as 6000 years ago, making them part of the "middle period" of the three eras (defined in large part by different painting techniques and/or subject material) described by our guide at the Cuevas on Sunday. 

We continued onward until we reached a bouldery grotto of-sorts created from a landslide which occurred sometime long ago - or at least before Bruno and probably even I was born.

On the drive back, Bruno took a slight detour so we could stop at another old building from another of the pre-merger estancias which was called La Buitrera. This one was in slightly better shape than the house at Madrugada, and is now used by Los Toldos to house their only two year-round full-time employees - two gauchos who tend the sheep, cows, and horses on a 40,000 hectare ranch. 

These puppies are far cuter than the old gaucho who greeted us at the door upon our arrival, but the latter was quite friendly and hospitable. He insisted that we sample some of the fresh hot tortas fritas (little fried bread cakes) he was making. We didn't get to meet his partner Santiago, who was out in the saddle somewhere. The puppies were sired by a pure-blood Bloodhound that was brought back from the USA by Santiago after he spent two years working in Nevada on a sheep ranch. Why would they want dogs with Bloodhound heritage here on an estancia in Argentina?  It's because they use dogs to track and catch the large hares that are hopping around everywhere here on this estancia and throughout the Santa Cruz province. There must be millions of them, all told. Apparently, they can fetch $2 a bunny when shipped to France to make cassoulet. Bruno also confided that "lamentablemente..." many of the free-range horses on the estancia were being raised for meat - that product being shipped to primarily to Japan and France as well.

Bruno made and offered us máte, which is a strong tea made from the leaves of the máte plant. Drinking máte is an Argentinean tradition and social ritual. The drink is prepared in cups made from hollowed-out gourds or tree branches, and sipped through a special silver straw which also serves as the filter. Traditionally, the máte is passed around and shared (yes, everyone shares the straw), and the preparer has a special role of adding hot water and stirring between sips. Argentineans seem to carry thermoses around with them almost everywhere, in order to have an ample supply of hot water on hand for the making of máte whenever the urge arises. 

And today, our last full day at Telken, we took a short horse ride around the estancia in the morning, enjoyed lunch with the family, worked on school in the afternoon, and then enjoyed dinner with a swarm of new tourists that arrived in the early evening. It was a wonderful way to close out our stay here at Estancia Telken.

-Rolf