Equipo Williams

A few days ago we went to Panagea ranch. Panagea is a ranch in the north west of Uruguay where you can get the full Gaucho experience. We were there for three nights and two full days of riding horses. The evening we got there was nothing big, we just went over some house rules and other things like that, had dinner, and went to bed. But the next morning the fun began. The owner Juan, his two daughters, Dharma and Abril, and his gaucho, Bilinga, taught us how to saddle, mount and ride our horses, then we headed out. 

In the morning we just went for a scenic ride to get used to being on a horse. We came back around noon and had lunch. Raquel, the cook, makes DELICIOUS food for everyone, “gaucho food”, which was so amazing I would’ve asked for a recipe if I hadn’t been doing all of this other stuff. After lunch, we went to herd a small flock of sheep. We had to ride in a more or less straight line to get them to the area where we were going to treat them. After achieving this, we dismounted and got ready to deworm and ween the lambs. 

We got them into two pens with some big flags and braced for the running of the sheep. You see, to deworm them, we had to find the lambs, grab them by the neck, and hold them until they were dewormed. The deworming process consisted of putting a liquid via syringe into their mouth to kill the worms, and then marking them with chalk so they wouldn’t be given the formula twice. The problem with this is you had to keep the lambs fairly still which they didn’t like very much. Often they escaped and you had to recatch them. We had split into two groups to tackle the deworming faster, but it was mostly only me in my pen grabbing lambs, which was work. Once one jumped on top of an adult sheep and needed a bit of help to get off. It was fun and very tiring. 

We then weaned the sheep, by letting them run to the gate but only opening it for the adults and not for the lambs. This was done by Juan because he was the only one able to do it without letting any lambs get through on accident. It was funny to see him slam the pen door in the lamb’s faces.

After that we brought the sheep back to their pen (without the lambs of course) which took about an hour, then headed back for dinner. Our group was us, a tour group of about five people, and a lady traveling solo for a year. Everyone was very nice and I quite liked hanging out with them. 

The next morning was also very exciting. We got up, ate breakfast, and left to go riding. In the morning we herded some cows to a pen at the corner of their pasture, and cleaned the wounds on the baby cows where the umbilical cord had been. Some of the wounds had maggots in them and it was bloody and really revolting, though I am glad we helped them not get fatal infections. In the afternoon we did another herd of sheep, but a bigger herd, and with less people, so exhausting. We went on a hike and saw the beautiful Uruguayans plains and rivers. The next day we had planned to go riding one last time before we left, but there was a thunderstorm so we couldn’t. We had barbeque for lunch and got ready to leave. The drive away was depressing because my family officially ranked this place up as the best experience in South America so far, so we were disappointed to have to leave. I got  at shirt to remember the farm and I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY hope we go back soon.