Hunting for Gauchos

October 8, 2011: Taking bus after bus from one small town to another small town here in Uruguay, I have been hunting for Gauchos. A Gaucho is a term that is used for the South American cowboy.

After days of searching for some of dem Gauchos, I can see now why towns of Tacuarembo, Melo and Treinta Tres are not tourist hot spots. The Gauchos here do not seem to be dressing up for outsiders and they do not even ride horses around town. Yes, they ride horses but not of the flesh, they are iron horses�either a moped or dirt bike. I even saw an oversized Gaucho relocating a roped up living horse on his tiny beat up moped.

My trip to the countryside to see my stereo typical vision of Gauchos roaming the streets everywhere did not transpire. There were only a few men wearing high leather boots supporting gigantic leather belts similar to those worn by championship boxers and there were zero women in frilly dresses.

Next time I will do it the easy way and just take the $78USD tour to a Gaucho farm outside Montevideo, since on the advertisement outside the tourist offices; they were all playing dress up. The best part is that you didn�t need to travel about 15 hours on buses from town to town to see a measly handful of the Gauchos I came to see.

Please note: Photo pulled from Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Gaucho.png