4* & 5* South America Adventure Tours - Horseback riding vacation in Uruguay

Day 1: Montevideo – Tango & Candomble
Today is set aside to relax and explore the seaside city of Montevideo. Guests are met at the Carrasco International Airport and driven along the wonderful coastline called “Rambla” to your downtown hotel. We will immerse ourselves in Uruguayan culture in Montevideo, the most important city as well as the capital. Welcome luxurious barbecue at the Mercado del Puerto and free time to rest or explore the downtown streets and experience the typical Rio de la Plata music, the Tango or Candombe with the rhythms and coloured costumes. Montevideo is a very quite and safe city that combines museums, street markets, nice restaurants and very friendly people. You will stay in a nice centrally located 3 to 4 star hotel. (dinner is not included today).

Day 2: 18th century Fortín de San Miguel
After breakfast we will be driven to the Brazilian border and into Rocha, arguably the most beautiful province in Uruguay with its pristine beaches, emerald shores and network of lagoons. We will visit ‘Chuy’ , a very curious town straddling the border where guests can step into Brazil and hear the locals speak a strange language made of a mix of Spanish and Portuguese. As we arrive at the hotel built in the same stone as the nearby Portuguese fortress we can admire the views out across an enormous stretch of fresh water -one of the largest fresh water reserves of South America, the "Merlin Lagoon". We are right on the Brazilian border. After lunch we will meet gauchos and our horses to ride around the rolling hills of San Miguel enjoying a wonderful panoramic view of the area from the top of the boulder covered ‘Cerro Picudo’. The view across the flat lowlands and the huge lagoon provides a very different landscape to the following days’ rides. We can smell the sea and on clear days view the coast. This area is home to a wide variety of birds and we will see many different native trees and bushes. We will also have the chance to see the Cimarron cattle – the first cattle, introduced from Spain in the 17th century and depending on what the gauchos are doing, they may need a hand to work these tame animals. We will stay at the " Fortín de San Miguel", guests can enjoy the gardens, swimming pool and the relaxed atmosphere.

Day 3: Barra de Chuy beach – Brazilian border & a ride along a pristine beach
In the morning we will have a nice 3-4 hours ride along the Brazilian border, sometimes riding in Uruguay and others in Brazil ! After a special picnic lunch at a working estancia, riders may have a pleasant “siesta” discovering that gauchos saddles are so comfortable to ride as wells as to sleep! Then we will have a fast-pace ride along the wonderful, isolated ocean beach of ‘Barra Chuy’.Visitors seldom reach this beach so we can enjoy a long, exhilarating canter with no signs of habitation as we ride across the pure white sands alongside the Atlantic ocean. We arrive 22km (12 miles) further south at "La Coronilla" and stay at small beachside hotel.

Day 4: Santa Teresa national park, dolphins & shipwrecks
Today we will ride south, alternating beaches with coastal hills, sand dunes, pine forests into the immense Santa Teresa National Park. The center piece of the park is a fort started in 1762 by the Portuguese to defend the edge of their territories then completed by the Spaniards who took it by assault just a year later. This was just the start of a succession of conquering, loosing and reconquering the fort; it was not until 1825 that the newly forming ‘Uruguay’ finally captured and held the fort. The fort is surrounded by 3000 hectares of forest containing over 2 million trees the majority from other parts of the world and, after a picnic lunch we will enjoy riding along the forest trails, down to the beach. We pass a shipwreck buried in the sand – one of many along this treacherous coast. Indeed, Polonio, where we ride later is named after a Spanish galleon that went down just off the point. Luckily ‘Beagle’ with Charles Darwin aboard did not succumb to this fate and Darwin spent quite some time in Uruguay collecting species and most likely starting to formulate his theories of evolution. Most days there is the wonderful sight of dolphins feeding in the bay. After a traditional picnic close to the fortress or on the beach depending on the weather , we can choose between been driven or canter back along the water’s edge to the hotel for barbecued fresh fish, Uruguayan wine and a pleasant overnight listening to the waves.

Day 5: Don Bosco – tropical palm groves & Laguna Negra
After an early breakfast, we will be driven along a very scenic road near to the famous "Laguna Negra" (the ‘black lagoon’, named after the dark waters). We will meet the horses and ride into the native vegetation on the Don Bosco hills from where we will be able to enjoy an incredible view of the unique extensive palm groves and Laguna Negra. Despite a number of stories, no one knows how the palm trees got here -some 300 years old; they are not native but they give the landscape a very exotic look. During the trip we will pass many roadside stalls selling the fruit and the less innocent ‘hooch’ brewed from the palm nuts. The cloudy, sticky liquid is so potent that if you leave the cap off the old bottles it is sold in the liquor evaporates in a flash! Descending the hills we ride alongside the lake where we will surely see ibis, herons, egrets, storks and a legion of migrating birds (birds arrive here from as far as Alaska and the Falkland/Malvinas Islands). After a typical lunch on the lagoon shores, we ride on eastwards through the palm groves and back towards the coast where we meet the vehicle and head to a nearby working Estancia El Sauce for overnight.

Day 6: El Sauce, an authentic estancia – ‘mate’ tea & the gaucho life
We wake up on a farm - El Sauce is a working estancia run by its owners where we will enjoy a full day riding around the crops and very varied vegetation on the property. The estancia, built in 1920, is very comfortable –it is not a hotel but the family house that we have been invited to stay as guests of the owners, offering us an incredible experience and a very special insight into the life in the country. For example, guests can sample the ‘mate’ sipped hot out of a dry gourd. The gauchos and their mate are inseparable and a ceremony has developed around drinking mate. In addition to the cattle grasslands this estancia has a large area of marshlands and also rice crops both of which are teeming with bird life (more than 400 species in this area) making another very varied ride and giving us the chance to see the graceful black-necked swan (largest populations in the world found here), the rare white goose and many ducks and other birds such as the largest bird in South America- the ‘ostrich-like’ “ñandú” (rhea). Otters, coypus and capybaras inhabit the marshlands and streams. At several points on the trip we will see the pink flamingo – a species of flamingo with very bright pink pigment and quite common in Uruguay. Overnight at this authentic working estancia.

Day 7: Cabo Polonio – shifting sands & sea lions
The day starts with a drive to the ocean coast . We will met our horses and ride into the desert! We ride through the area which has been declared a natural animal reserve and
a Biosphere Natural Reserve by UNESCO. We will ride to Cabo Polonio, a charming fishing village which can only be reached by horse or four wheeled drive. The fascinating part of the area is the huge area of shifting sand dunes, as we ride through it is possible to imagine that we are right in the middle of the Sahara. After lunch at a typical restaurant on the beach we will see seals and sea lions that populate the small islands and make up one of the largest populations of seals in the world; very occasionally we spot a migrating Right Whale. Riders can swim in one of the most beautiful beaches of the country. After this ride full of surprises and diverse scenery, we will stay at a lovely comfortable working estancia, El Charabón.

Day 8: El Charabón working estancia – Cattle drives and traditional meals
We continue our Uruguayan ride experience at Estancia El Charab ón (Charabón means small rhea). El Charabó is a 1200 ha, beautiful working estancia specialized in calving
and lambing. The landscape is absolutely different from the days before, El Charabón combines open prairies with a large Eucalyptus forestry. In addition to very nice rides on the excellent horses bred at the estancia, we will have the chance of helping the gauchos and their working dogs on cattle and sheep drives, relax in the open swimming pool and have a wonderful sunset tea time. Uruguayan wine, lamb barbecue and the homemade specialties are a special complement for beautiful cantering days at this charming estancia.

Day 9: Estancia Ride
Today, we will enjoy a full morning ride at Estancia “El Charabón”. We will enjoy fantastic sceneries of hills and prairies. After a typical lunch at the estancia, guests will be driven to Montevideo airport in time for their outward flights or continue on pre-arranged extensions.