Luján and the Festival that didn´t exist

Argentine Idol: Son of God, or Hand of God? "Religious" idols for sale in a stall at Lujàn

Waaaaaaaaaay back in Ushuaia, Dorthe and I made a decision that we were sick of the tourist "production line" that, along with every other gringo in town, we seemed to be on. Neither of us really see much point in going all this distance, just to do, drink and eat the same things that you do at home - we´ve even seen backpackers sitting around watching Beverly Hills 90210. It really doesn´t make much sense to us. Our desire to find stuff off the standard trail lead us, eventually, to Luján, and "the festival that didn´t exist".

The last time we were in Argentina, we were fascinated by Argentine culture of beef and the Gaucho, the local equivalent of the cowboy. Gauchos have a very strong cultural identity, and there is a large body of tradition associated with them. Reading the guide book in Ushuaia, we found that the Gaucho culture is centred on two towns near Buenos Aires: San Antonio de Areco, and Luján. In particular, the book mentioned that there was a large festival on April 21st, celebrating Caballero criollo, the horse of choice for the Gaucho. It sounded exactly like what we were looking for. And so, all the way from Ushuaia, all through El Calafate, and El Chaltén, we had this date of the 21st of April in mind, and planned everything around it. And rather than heading along the spine of the Andes as we had originally planned, we headed out to the coast, to Buenos Aires.

But there was a problem. A rather large one. The problem was that we weren´t completely sure whether this festival actually existed. We asked the locals in Ushuaia and no one knew about it. Neither did the tourist offices in El Calafate or Puerto Madryn. In Puerto Madryn, after many attempts, an internet effort turned up the Luján city webpage, and a reference to the festival - on the 23rd April. Ok, so the book is off by a day or two, no wurries, we´ll just spend some more time in Buenos Aires. But when we got that far, neither the tourist office for either Buenos Aires city, nor that for the greater Buenos Aires area, knew anything about it. We were starting to get stressed. Were we on a wild goose chase?

We decided to go all the same - Luján sounded like a nice city anyway. On the 22nd we went to San Antonio de Areco, two hours outside Buenos Aires - a beautiful old colonial town, with cobbelled streets, old houses, and tonnes of stores selling gaucho related stuff. A really nice, pleasant place to visit, which we enjoyed a lot. But, true to form, the tourist office there didn´t know anything about it either, even though Luján is 40km down the road. Not a good omen.

On the appointed day, we made our way to Luján. Luján is the religious centre of Argentina, and houses the national Basicila, a beautiful French-gothic cathedral that soars above the plaza loaded with stalls selling religious trinkets in front of it. But we wanted men on horses. We made our way to the tourist office. "Do you know where the gaucho festival is today?" "Today? No, there is no festival today, its in December." "December?" "Yes". "There is nothing today?". "No, but you should go to the zoo instead, there are lions there that you can actually touch." "Ahhh, no gracias". Great. We consoled ourselves with a visit to the cathedral. It was impressive, but after coming so far, and making so much effort to see the Gaucho, we were a bit disappointed.

On the way back from the Cathedral, we walked past the tourist office, and there were different people there. "Shall we try again?". "Yeah, why not?". I asked, and recieved the same answer. :-( Then Dorthe noticed a printout of the Luján webpage on the side of the tourist office, saying it was today. She pointed to it. "Oh THAT, its down at the momument at 3pm." Yah, at last, something.

We went down to the monument, and there were about twenty or thirty people there, milling around. A few of them had guitars. There were no horses. It all looked pretty local. We resigned ourselves philosophically to the failure of our quest. It was a nice idea, and we got to see the cathedral.....

Suddenly, from nowhere a marching band appeared. Then, from the other direction, 300 gauchos rode into town on their horses. The procession was endless. Men on horses, boys on horses. Boys on carts. Women riding side saddle on horses. Men herding wild horses through town. Girls on the back of boys horses. There were literally more horses than people. At last, real live, Gaucho. We were positively stoked.

What we came to see - a Gaucho on the main street of Lujàn, with the Lujàn Basillica in the distance

We spent the rest of the day wandering amongst them, photographing them, talking to them as best we could, watching their dance, and listening to their music about Caballero Criollo. That night, we even ate in true Gaucho style, with a Parallada - a massive fry-up of sausage, steak, ribs, sweetbread, blood sausage, whole kidneys, and small intestines. The day was outstanding, and everything we had hoped for - there were no other gringos, there was nobody trying to drag you off on their tours, there were barely even any non-Gaucho locals: just the Gauchos celebrating their beautiful horses. There is no doubt that the story of "Luján and the festival that didn`t exist" will be one of the highlights of this trip.