Everything became clear to me on my third day in Patagonia. At least I think so. I had ridden a horse, a male with an itchy nose named Al Capone, into the cold wind swept hills of Cerro Frias. Al Capone and I completed the line of other tourists with little to no riding experience, and we did a good job of it. In fact, only once did we run into a tree. But it was after that, when we descended the treacherous – or what felt like treacherous – hills to the stables and later inside where the fire roared and that savory asado smell burned into the wood, that I realized this part of Patagonia contained a secret something that can overpower visitors with calm, rendering them utterly content, like gauchos that sleep with their hats over their faces, revealing hardly perceptible smiles – because gauchos really shouldn’t smile – under sunset nebulas of strangely inspiring skies.
It’s a perfect place, utterly beautiful. That’s what I was thinking at least until it struck me right then, when two of my friends engaged a Swedish couple in conversation, that maybe it’s NOT so perfect after all. The Swedish woman was saying something. I was too busy with the beef to listen.
“Huh?” I said, and washed down a whole steak with a slug of Malbec.
“Magic,” she said. I had no idea what she was talking about, but my friends are conversationalists, so I imaged – whatever the context – it was engaging. “This part of the world is, you know, magic.”
“Funny, but I had the same conversation with Al Capone” (pronounced Ca POE nee) “just before he ran me into a tree. I’ve never seen anything like it – all of Patagonia. The thing is I can’t figure why they call him ‘Al Capone’. He doesn’t seem gangster.” I was a little concerned that gangster animals were running around here. That couldn’t be good for tourism.
“You should ask the guide,” said Quinn. Quinn and I have been friends since college. He knows a lot, and I take his advice sometimes.
“Blair, what did they call your horse?” I asked. It sounded to me a lot like “Saruman”, Gandalf’s evil equal from The Lord of the Rings, but I wasn’t sure.
“Donno,” said Blair who is an Englishman, half Scottish, so even when he doesn’t know something it sounds distinguished. Either way I was a little disturbed that so far, the horses, as far as I knew, were named after gangsters and evil wizards. I just came to the conclusion that Patagonia was a perfect, beautiful place but I couldn’t make sense of the animals, seemingly evil beasts. The contentment balloon of over my head felt tingly, like suddenly I was in Eden but there were only serpents.
“I thought he said ‘Soloman,’” said Quinn. That made me feel better. Because wise horses should be in charge of a magic place like this, not deranged gangster horses or orc farmers. Al Capone could be the exception, or maybe he just had a scar I failed to notice.
“I think it is Saruman,” said the Swedish woman.
“Well,” I said. “The guide is cool.” Forget all the shades of meaning that the word “cool” carries these days. Whatever cool means, the guide is that, riding his black stallion over the course terrain of Cerro Frias, smoking cigarettes and shouting commands all over. The guy is as man as they come: no nonsense. So maybe in Patagonia, the animals are a bunch of villains, but the men are pure, tough, and good, straight CODE HEROES like men in Hemingway novels. “Did anyway catch the name of his horse?” I asked. If our guide’s horse is called Apocalypse, then I would feel much better about things. Good men and evils beasts, sounds a bit like Eden after all.
“I actually asked him about that,” said Blair, his English accent captivating us all. “He told me that he felt badly about saying this, but there’s a reason why that black stallion is his.” Surely he saved the creature from a tar pit with his lasso. “He told me that one day the horse was making him really angry and in a fit of rage he punched it in the face.”
All us made wild faces at this.
“Apparently,” Blair continued, “he punched it so hard that the horse’s eye fell out of its socket.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” I said. I thought the Swedish woman was going to vomit.
“Well, he felt right bad about it. When he told owner, the owner told him that it was now his horse.”
“So the black stallion only has one eye?” asked the Swedish woman, disgusted. “Poor animal.”
I was beginning to wonder if Patagonia, despite its majestic beauty, kept up with human sacrifice…
**********
Continue reading: Five Nearly Perfect Days in Patagonia, Part II
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4 responses so far ↓
1 PIPEinArgentina.com » Blog Archive » Five Nearly Perfect Days in Patagonia, Part II // Nov 29, 2007 at 2:35 pm
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2 Roberto L. Cavanagh // May 19, 2008 at 9:24 pm
My dear friend: After reading this article you wrote Im forced to reply about some truth you should know so as to make yourself and your friends aware of reality. Im TITO, the manager of Cerro Frias. The same guy who went with you up the mountain…and the same guy who sadly took an eye from my horse.
Im the one who gives the names to the horses, according to something the have or did or sometimes in their history. Every each of the horses we have has a name, but sometimes its difficult to explain why they are called in such a way, specially to people who are not familiar with our culture. But lets start with Al Capone. Theres nothing gangster with him. If it was for his personality I would have called him Mahatma Gandhi. The thing is that when we bought Al capone we realised that he was a full male. That means he hadnt been castrated. So the thing is we had to castrate that horse because we did not need a stallion ( specially for the horsebackriding you did). In argentina whe an animal has just been castrated we call it a “Capon”. This word is specially used with sheep. Now from that meaning came his name as an alternative from it. “Capon”, “Capone”, “Al Capone”. So now you see hes no gangster but a simple horse who has no rights for being a father…”Al Capone” sounds nicer.
Second step: Blairs horse was indeed called “Saruman”. Yes as the evil wizard. Did you find any evil in him? We have an old horse who is really big and his hair is white. He has been with us since the beggining and his name is “Gandalf”. He has been called that way because of his size, his hair and his age. Many years after we bought the horse Blair rode and he looked very similar to “Gandalf” so we said to ourselves: ” well, if we have Gandalf…we must have Saruman as well!” Im a big movie fan so many of the horses are named after certain character in a movie. Even theres one called “Darth vader” because hes big and black, but nothing to do with being the bad guy. Y have one called Maximus after the Gladiator and I think he was the good guy in that movie. So dont be confused. The names given to the horses come from a mixture between how the look like and their history. And of course the knoledge and culture one has. Wakeing up in the morning and thinking “ok, Im going to name that horse John” doesnt sound very fun. Horses have no evil…we humans do.
Topic three: My horses name ( the black stallion) is “Cortes”. But nothing to do with the spanish conqueror. It comes from the surname of someone I know who is small and black. Usually I call the horse “Potro” which means stallion, even though he is not. But sometimes he thinks he is and thats why I call him that way. The story with “Potro” is this: One morning I was out on the field looking for some horses with him and we were a bit late. We had to prepare about 18 horses for the horsebackriding and imagine how nervous I was. The thing is that at a certain moment the horse pulled his head back and knocked me in the face. And as a stupid human reaction I punched him in the left side of his head..so unlucky that I hit and damaged his eye. Couldnt feel worst. I love horses and Ive been with them practically my whole life. It comes to a moment when you want to have a time machine and go back and take a better desition. But there was nothing to be done. I went back to the corral feeling as hell. I couldnt speak. Not even to explain the other boys what had just happened. People (tourists) came and I went out with them with the horseback riding but I could not talk. I just wanted to go back and be with the horse. That same evening I called the owner and told him what happened. I told him I was feeling ashamed of myself and that I wanted to buy the horse from him. He asked me if I wanted to kill him and of course I said No, that I just wanted to buy him so as to make him mine. As followed he told me he had given that horse to me as a gift so as to make me feel better. And that was what I wanted. That horse became the heavybag I will carry with me until the day I die. My burden. I treat him in a special way. Feeding him and brushing him every time I can and you must know that I apologize to him all the time eventhough I know its not going to change anything. What is done is done. And I still feel sorry for what I did. Sometimes we make mistakes and we must accept them. Thats part of being human. And with our mistakes we learn more so as to improve ourselves…so as not to make them again.
Im in Buenos Aires now. The season has ended in calafate and its been nearly two years since the horse incident. But you know something, I miss the horses a lot and specially him. And I cant wait until September so as to see them all. At home I only have pictures of them and when I look at the pictures of my horse, the black stallion, I still feel bad and want to say sorry…
Well, I hope all this information Ive given you helps to understand somethings. You were the first tourists who ever knew what had happened with his eye. Its not something easy to tell, you know. But I accept it.
I will say hi to “Al Capone” for you, ok? If you like I can send you pictures of the horses, Al and Saruman and Potro. Got plenty of them. Take care and say hello to your friends for me, will you. Bye.
Tito.
3 me // May 20, 2008 at 7:11 am
what happened?
4 Pipe // May 20, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Roberto,
Thank you for kind words and honest explanations.
As a writer, my intentions are to create a picture of the moment that highlights the comic undertones, as I see them. I meant to finish the article with a bit more poignantly; however, I never got back it.
In short, my experience at Cerro Frias was nothing short of amazing. I enjoyed you and the horses and I would recommend to anybody interested in visiting Patagonia, to visit Cerro Frias and do what I did. Take care and give my best to everyone.
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