Marcos Villamil crossed all of Argentina with three horses – from the endless expanses of the pampas to the cordillera of the Andes to Tierra del Fuego. After more than a year in the saddle, his journey is now coming to an end.
Buenos Aires – Marcos Villamil has gotten around a bit over the past year. He has seen the lush pastures of the pampas and the peaks of the Andes, he has ridden through streams and forests, has braved the icy wind and the scorching sun.
The 29-year-old covered around 8,600 kilometers with his three horses on his journey through Argentina. After 14 months in the saddle, he is now returning to Buenos Aires.
Like a freedom-loving gaucho
“I’ve always had the dream of going on this trip,” says Villamil. “It’s the best way to get to know our country.” In fact, riding is deeply rooted in Argentine culture. The freedom-loving gaucho, who wanders through the vast country with his horses, is one of the archetypes of local folklore. “My horses opened many doors for me on the trip,” says Villamil.
The adventurer grew up in the middle of Argentina’s vibrant capital, but spent his holidays on the family’s estate in the province of Buenos Aires. There he got to know the simple country life and rode his own horses. As early as 2014 he undertook a journey on horseback over 1000 kilometers through the province of Buenos Aires.
About 35 kilometers per day
When the agricultural engineer Villamil was about to be promoted in his job at a bank in Buenos Aires in 2020, he resigned without further ado and started planning his tour of Argentina. “I would not have made the trip with the new post,” says Villamil. “I would have regretted that all my life.”
In September 2020 he set off with his three horses Mora, Wayra and Tordo. From the province of Buenos Aires we went through the pampas, through the valley of the Río Negro to the mountain range of the Andes and then south to Tierra del Fuego. “I covered around 35 kilometers a day,” says Villamil. “After a ten-day ride, I always took a five-day break so the horses could recover.”
In sparsely populated Patagonia in particular, he had to plan his route carefully in order to get to feeding and watering points in good time. “Some of the farms are 300 kilometers apart,” says Villamil. “Sometimes I haven’t seen other people for days.”
A return to the original
He never ran into any real danger on his trip through Argentina, but there have been one or the other dicey situation. In Santa Cruz violent gusts of wind threw horse and rider almost into a ravine, another time one of the horses was frightened and kicked Villamil in the stomach. “If you seriously injure yourself in these remote areas, it’s over,” says the 29-year-old. “Then they’ll find your body maybe six months later.”
From Argentina’s southernmost city, Ushuaia, Villamil brought the horses with a trailer to General Pico in the province of La Pampa and rode from there north to the border with Bolivia. From La Quiaca in the far north of the country, we went south through the provinces of Salta, Chaco, Corrientes and Entre Ríos back to Buenos Aires.
In order not to overload the animals, Villamil exchanged them every day: he rode a horse himself, the second carried the luggage and the third ran with no weight. During the rest days, they were given concentrated feed in addition to grass. Villamil himself was modestly fed. “I ate a lot of nuts and dried fruit, I mostly skipped lunch and in the evenings there was almost always pasta,” he says.
For the 29-year-old, the trip through Argentina was also a return to the original, a return to the essentials. “I grew up in the big city, I went to the theater, went to concerts, met friends in restaurants,” says Villamil, whose grandmother comes from Hamburg. “Still, I didn’t feel lonely on my trip. I lived more intensely, concentrated on birdsong or certain smells. ”Dpa
