Argentina Guide
The Atlantic resorts and the Pampas
The Pampas
The vast expanse of flat pampas grassland that radiates out from Buenos Aires is one of the country's most famous features, just as the gaucho who once roamed on horseback, knife clenched between teeth, leaving a trail of broken hearts and gnawed steak bones behind him, is as important a part of the collective romantic imagination as the Wild West cowboy is in the US. The popular depiction of this splendid, freedom-loving figure – whose real life must actually have been rather lonely and brutal – was crystallized in José Hernández' epic poem Martín Fierro, from which just about every Argentine can quote. It's a way of life whose time has passed, but the gaucho's legacy remains. You're not likely to witness knife fights over a woman, but you can still visit well-preserved pulperías (traditional bars), stay at estancias and watch weather-beaten old paisanos (countrymen) playing cards and chuckling behind their huge handlebar moustaches. Shrines to the semi-mythical Gauchito Gil, one of the most famous gauchos of all, are often seen by the roadside in the Pampas.
The best area for this kind of visit is the Eastern Pampas, in a radius of a couple of hundred kilometres around Buenos Aires city. This is where you'll find the pampa húmeda (wet pampa), land that is the country's most fertile – and most valuable. There are several sites of interest here, most notably San Antonio de Areco, which has retained a remarkably authentic feel despite its popularity. As you move into the Western Pampas, and towards the border with La Pampa Province, the scenery starts to change. The unremitting flat landscape is given welcome relief by the modest mountain range of Sierra de la Ventana, while the drier, more desert-like features of the pampa seca (dry pampa) herald the start of the long route south through Patagonia.